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REPORTS 


ON TIIE PROPERTY OF 



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THE NEW YORK AND BOSTON 

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CHESTER COUNTY, PA. 


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NEW-YORK: 

GEORGE F. NESBITT k CO., PRINTERS AND STATIONERS, 

COK. PEARL AND PINE STREETS. 


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1864. 






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lefo-fork nnb pastern Sifter-! eair Compang. 


PRESIDENT, 

HENRY L. PIERSON. 


TREASURER, 

JOHN BLOODGOOD. 


TRUSTEES, 

JOHN STEWARD, 
HENRY L. PIERSON, 
JAMES JI. STEBBINS, 
JAMES H. BANKER, 
ALFRED LOCKWOOD, 
H. H. BOODY, 
ANDREW G. PIERCE, 
EDWARD ROWE, 
JOHN SIMPKINS. 






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^ CONTENTS. 

<3 

OO 

REPORT. 

PAGE. 


Letter from Professor B. Silliman, Jr., accompanying his Report... . 1 

Report of Professor B. Silliman, Jr. 2 

“ of Eugene Gaussoin, Esq. 10 

of Captain Joseph Cocking. 13 

Schedule of Real and Personal Estate, Steam Engines, &c. 15 


SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT. 

Reports of Professor Henry D. Rogers. 19 

Report of Prof. B. Silliman, Jr., from “ The World of Art and In¬ 
dustry Illustrated.”. 48 

Jury Report and Award of Silver Medal, by Profs. Dana and 

Hall, (New-York Exhibition.). 52 

Extracts from Professor J. D. Whitney’s “Metallic Wealth of 

the United States.”. 53 

Report by Wm. P. Blake, Esq., from “The Mining Magazine.”. 55 

“ of Charles Hoofstetten, Esq. 63 

it 

Extract from Special Report of Sir Charles Lyell.. 68 

“ “ of Professor Wilson. 69 

Letter from Messes. John Taylor & Sons. 70 

Assays by Professor James d. Booth, Chas. Johnson and James 

R. Chilton, M. D. 75 

Longitudinal Section of Wheatley and Brookdale Mines. 




























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NEW'YORK AND BOSTON SILVER-LEAD MINES. 


New Haven, Conn., March 8, 1864. 

To the Owners of the 

New-York and Boston Silver Lead Mines. 

Gentlemen ,—Having, at your request, lately re-visited the Silver 
Lead Mines belonging to you in Chester County, Pennsylvania, I 
have now the honor to submit for your consideration, the follow¬ 
ing Report upon their present condition and prospects. I have 
also compiled for your better information a Supplementary 
Report, in which you will find a large mass of valuable informa¬ 
tion, derived from various sources, both domestic and foreign, 
showing in how high an estimation this valuable property has 
been held by all who have seen it, including in this number 
many of the highest mining and metallurgical authorities on both 
sides of the Atlantic. My researches into its history have brought 
to light no unfavorable opinion, and I have given the whole, that 
you may draw from it your own inference. No person conversant 
at all with the history of such enterprises can fail to see that such 
a mass of favorable testimony, derived from the highest author¬ 
ity, both practical and scientific, demonstrates beyond dispute the 
high value of your property. 

There is no mineral property in the United States whose record 
is superior to this, and none, in my opinion, with a more encour¬ 
aging future. 

I have the honor to remain, gentlemen, 

Your obedient servant, 

B. SILLIMAN, Jr. 








REPORT OF PROFESSOR B. SILLIMAN, Jr. 


HISTORICAL. 

The Silver Lead Mines now owned by your Company, were 
first discovered and explored in 1851, by Chas. M. Wheatley, 
Esq., who worked them for the owners, a party of capitalists, who 
afterwards suffered the mines to stop, from causes entirely discon¬ 
nected with their metallic value or productiveness. They are situ¬ 
ated in a range of decomposing granite rocks near the line of the 
red shales, in Chester County, Pennsylvania, about 29 miles from 
Philadelphia, and near the Reading Railroad and the Schuylkill 
Navigation Company’s canal. Having been familiar with the 
property, from repeated examinations during 1851-54, I am able 
to speak of these mines with a degree of confidence derived from 
personal knowledge, when they were in a condition of active ex¬ 
ploration. 

In view of the fullness of detail embraced in the subsequent 
portions of this report, I shall confine myself here to such state¬ 
ments as may aid those who have had no previous acquaintance 
with the property to understand it at a glance. 

For convenience, let us divide the subject into notices: 

1st. Of the description and value of the metallic ores. 

2d. Of the extent of the mines, and their former workings. 

3d. Of the present'condition of the property. 

4th. Of the work proposed to be done. 

5th. Of the probable yield of the mines. 

OF THE DESCRIPTION AND VALUE OF THE METALLIC ORES'. 

It appears, from the well preserved records of the mines, that 
the amount of lead ores marketed from the opening of the mines 
in 1851, to 1854, was, in round numbers, 1,800 tons. 



4 


In 1851, the amount raised was only 11 tons. In 1853, over 
1,000 tons of dressed lead ore were raised from Wheatley Mine, 
averaging 60 per cent, of lead. The galena ores of this mine yield 
from 70 to 85 per cent, of lead each ton, and from 15 to T20 
ounces of silver. 

The value of the ores so raised was, in 1854, as follows: 

The market price of 1,800 tons of 60 per cent, ore, at 

6+ cents per lb., in pig lead, would be,.151,248 00 

Deduct cost for smelting, a liberal estimate,. 20,000 00 $137,248 00 

Expenditures. 

Amount paid for labor,.$53,389 66 

Amount paid for engines, machinery, materials, fuel, 

rent, implements of all kinds, buildings, water rights, 

&c., &c. 49,362 62 $102,752 28 

This yield of lead from the Wheatley Mine, exceeds, it is be¬ 
lieved, in value and amount all the lead raised in the United 
States from all the mines this side of Wisconsin. 

The ores raised and sold were of two classes: 1st. The salts of 
lead, viz., phosphate, carbonate, sulphate, &c., which constituted 
about three-fourths of the entire quantity marketed, and having 
an average yield of about 65 per centum of lead. 2d. Of galena, 
or sulphuret of lead, yielding on an average 75 per centum of 
lead, and from 15 to 120 ounces of silver to the ton of ore. 

OF THE EXTENT OF THE MINES AND THEIR FORMER 

WORKINGS. 

The real estate embraces in fee the Wheatley Farm, of 47| acres, 
of line arable land, on Pickering Creek, in one of the best agricul¬ 
tural districts in Pennsylvania; and also the mining right in per¬ 
petuity on about 100 acres more, covering the entire course of the 
metallic veins for nearly a mile. 

The Wheatley Farm is provided with a comfortable stone house 
for the manager, furnished throughout, even to the linen, and in 
good condition, with ample stone barn and stables for horses and 
cattle; ice-house, store-houses and offices complete ; a house for the 






5 


Mining Captain, and fourteen well-built frame-houses, for miners, in 
good order. A well-furnished office with desks, two iron safes, 
mineral cases, and other conveniences; material houses, smiths’ 
and carpenters’ shops, assay office and other mine buildings, 
stocked with a large amount of personal property, including 
miners’, smiths’ and carpenters’ tools; chains, kibbles, windlasses, 
iron ropes, steel, iron, hemp ropes, blocks ; and, in short, a stock of 
materials of every description required in the administration of 
extensive mines, and all in good condition. Such a stock of per¬ 
sonal property will greatly facilitate, and diminish the cost of, 
opening the mines anew. I was agreeably surprised to find, after 
so long a suspension of active operations, property of this descrip¬ 
tion, and to such an extent in such excellent preservation. 

Of the machinery, &c., I shall speak under the next head. 
These mines are opened upon a vein or lode of silver-bearing lead, 
mingled with more or less of ores of copper and zinc, which 
stretches from the Pickering Creek, (into which the adit level 
empties,) nearly a mile to the south-west, to where your property 
adjoins the “ Phoenix,” which is only a continuation of the same 
vein, at least half a mile farther in the same direction. 

There are two principal shafts opened upon this vein on your 
property, viz : (1.) The Wheatley shaft, sunk vertically through 
the granite, to cut the vein at the forty-fathom level from which 
point, (its present depth,) it is intended to sink on the course of the 
vein. (2.) The Brookdale shaft, distant from the Wheatley shaft 
2,076 feet. This shaft is sunk on the course of the vein to the depth 
of a little more than 30 fathoms, (180 feet.) The accompanying 
section, drawn to a scale, will give a clear idea of the extent and 
depth of the workings on the vein. 

This is in all respects a true mineral vein, contained between 
well-defined walls of decomposing granite, (“ killas” of the Cornish 
miners,) and capped by a beautiful “gossan,” the “ iron hat” of 
the Germans, so unfailing an indication of a mineral vein. The 
matrix of the vein is quartz, carbonate of lime and fluor spar, 
well charged in the upper levels with salts of lead, resulting from 
the atmospheric decomposition of the galena. The mineralogical 


specimens famished from this mine, are celebrated the world over 
for their exquisite beauty, and have never been surpassed ; among 
them, the green and yellow phosphate of lead, the sulphate, car¬ 
bonate and molybdate of lead are most conspicuous. These disap¬ 
pear in depth, and are replaced by silver-bearing lead, zinc blende 
and yellow copper. The width of the vein will average probably 
about two feet, although often very much wider. 

It is mostly very easy ground to break, the average price of 
driving and sloping being estimated at ten dollars a fathom by 
Capt. Cocking, [see his report in supplement,] who was the under¬ 
ground Captain during the whole period of working the mine— 
“ and has yielded, on an average, about one ton of dressed ore from 
each square fathom of all the ground driven and stoped on the 
vein. 57 Captain C. well adds: u There are very few lead mines in 
this or any other country, which have yielded better than this.” 

No stronger testimony can be asked in favor of the permanently 
productive character of these lodes, than is given in the following 
paragraph, quoted from a letter from Messrs. John Taylor & Sons, 
of London, generally recognized as the highest authorities in Eng¬ 
land : 

“ I may add my opinion or testimony to that of Professor 
Rogers, in favor of these lodes, in saying, that the gradual change 
from gossans to carbonates and phosphates of lead, and from those 
to sulphurets, is an almost unmistakable indication of a valu¬ 
able lead lode; and I may add, that I have rarely known an in¬ 
stance where those minerals have been found in abundance in the 
shallow parts of the lode, where it has not turned out very pro¬ 
ductive in depth in ores of pure galena; and I may further say, 
that the soft and decomposing character of the rock in the walls 
of the lodes is a very favorite symptom in our mining districts, 
and also in Mexico. 7 ' 

OF THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE PROPERTY. 

These mines stopped work in 1855, as already stated, from 
causes entirely disconnected with their intrinsic value or produc¬ 
tiveness, and at a time when their prospects for continued and in- 


creasing value were never more encouraging. The property, real 
and personal, has been kept in remarkably good condition—the 
former owners always entertaining the idea of again opening the 
mines at an early date. 

The accompanying schedule comprehends the most impor¬ 
tant items of real and personal property on this estate. As re¬ 
spects the condition of the steam engines and machinery on this 
property, I found that they had been carefully protected from rust 
by a paint of tallow and white lead. Indeed the engines require 
only a little cleaning to be in good running order. The same I 
believe to be true, also, of the boilers. The Charlestown engine 
is a splendid machine of its class: a Cornish beam, double acting 
(whim) engine, low pressure, sixty-horse power, and adapted pre¬ 
cisely to your wants for hoisting and crushing, vrhen located pro¬ 
perly midway between the Wheatley and Brookdale shafts, com¬ 
manding them both. 

The pumping engine at Brookdale Mine is a direct action 
( u bull ”) engine of sixty-horse power, and capable of pumping that 
shaft when sunk to any probably required depth. 

The pumping-engine at the Wheatley shaft is also a direct act¬ 
ing (bull) engine, on the Cornish plan, of 24-inch cylinder and 60- 
horse power, and is competent to fork the water to the bottom of 
the present shaft 40 fathoms, and enable you to stope the ground 
already opened, by which time a more powerful machine will be 
required. This machine is provided for already in the value of 
the grand double-acting 150-horse power horizontal engine at 
Morris Mine included in the schedule of property, but which it 
is deemed expedient not to disturb from its present position. 

Of course the levels, at the time of my visit, were under water, 
and the timber which has been thus submerged is unquestionably 
in good order. The levels themselves may have suffered some 
deterioration, as well as the timber above water level. Repairs 
are, of course, needful after such a suspension. The dressing 
floors have been broken up, but the single Cornish crusher which 
prepared all the ore which was marketed, requires only new T rolls 
to be in good condition for work again, while the new one, now 


8 


on the ground, is being erected. These points are more sharply 
noticed in the following: 

OF THE WORK PROPOSED TO BE DONE. 

At the Wheatley Mine. 

1. Charlestown engine to be removed to Wheatley Mine, and 
placed so as to command two or three shafts for hoisting and 
crushing. 

2. The present engine over the Wheatley shaft to be used only 
to discharge the water above the present bottom of the mine, and 
until a more energetic machine can be brought into action to sink 
the shaft to lower levels. 

3. The Morris engine to remain where it now is, to be disposed 
of for the benefit of the Company. 

4. For the deeper sinking of the Wheatley shaft it is essential 
that a more powerful pumping engine be erected, which can be 
done without interruption to the working of the mine. 

5. There is a new Cornish crusher on the mine, ready for 
erection, to be driven by the Charlestown engine, also a new Cor¬ 
nish steam whim capable of hoisting from two shafts from any 
probable depth. These important pieces of machinery can be put 
into action as soon as the Charlestown engine is erected. Mean¬ 
time the existing crusher, driven with a waterwheel, can be made 
serviceable with inconsiderable repairs. 

6. There are pumps enough on the premises to sink the Wheat- 
ley shaft twenty to thirty fathoms below its present depth. 


At the Brookdale Mine. 

1. The pumping engine, as described in the schedule, is capable 
of pumping the water thirty or forty fathoms below the present 
levels. This engine and boilers are in fair working order. 

2. The pumps at Charlestown Mine are sufficient to sink the 
Brookdale shaft thirty or forty fathoms below the present depth. 

These arrangements being completed, which may require five 


9 


or six months’ time, there will remain no hindrance to the most 
active prosecution of mining exploration. Meantime a small force 
of miners can be at work extending (by stoping) the ground already 
opened, and driving in such levels as it is deemed safe to extend 
with the present pumping power, in Wheatley shaft. 

At Brookdale shaft nine men can be kept at, work sinking the 
shaft, and eight more in driving the bottom ends. 

OF THE PROBABLE YIELD OF THE MINE. 

This important head is to be considered first, in view of the 
immediate product, taking things as they are; and second, pro¬ 
spective yield , when the shafts are sunk below the present level, and 
the unbroken ground both east aud west of the Wheatley shafts, 
and especially that large block of ground between Wheatley and 
Brookdale shafts, is opened by driving levels under it. 

1st. As soon as the mine is cleared up, and men put in the old 
levels, ores will begin to come to grass. After from three to four 
months’ time, it seems reasonable to anticipate a yield of from 
40 to 50 tons of lead ores per month, and from 50 to 100 tons of 
zinc blende, and possibly 10 tons of 25 per cent, copper ore from 
the Brookdale levels. Let us take the smaller of these estimates : 

40 tons of 60 per cent, lead ores are worth now, including silver, 

20 oz. to the ton, say.$120 $4,800 

50 tons zinc blende, worth in England, (and can be sent there 

freight free, as ballast,) say £5 8s., at $L70 exchange. 2,040 

10 tons of copper ore 25 per cent. Present worth $150 per ton... 1,500 

$8,340 

When these mines were at work before, there was no market for 
zinc blende. This ore is now in active demand in England, and 
can be sent in ballast to Liverpool, without cost for freight. Large 
quantities of it were left standing in the mine, which can now be 
taken down to advantage. The low price of ores of lead in 1854, 
also led to the neglect of all but the richer ores, and consider¬ 
able quantities of the poorer sort now lay already mined on the 
old stulls, which can be advantageously raised and dressed at the 
present prices. 

2 





10 


Although the cost of labor has advanced 50 per cent., the cost 
of lead has advanced from two to three hundred per cent.; ores 
therefore too poor to pay for working, at former prices, will pay 
very well now. 

CONCLUSION. 

The things essential to your success, and with which the success 
of your mines is as certain as such enterprises in their very nature 
can be, are a vigorous exploration, the reserve of a substantial 
cash capital, and an economical administration. All the ores sold 
should form a fund for dividends, reserving your capital to de¬ 
velop the mines. Your situation is eminently favorable: good 
and cheap fuel, lumber, timber and food; a metropolitan centre 
at hand to regulate prices of labor, the possession of a number of 
the most valuable metals, and the choice of a market for them. 
Your property is already well developed, and has demonstrated 
its self-sustaining capacity. 

I congratulate you, gentlemen, on the possession of so valuable 
an estate. 

Yours, respectfully, 

B. SILLIMAN, Jr. 

Yale College, New Haven, March 8, 1864. 


REPORT OF EUGENE GAUSSOIN, ESQ., 

MINING ENGINEER AND METALLURGIST. 

To Chas. M. Wheatley, Esq. : 

Sir ,—The magnificence of the cabinet specimens of lead ores 
found in the Wheatley Mine, the variety of their chemical com¬ 
position and the perfection of their crystals, have widely spread 
amongst mineralogists the character of the mineral district of 
Chester County in Pennsylvania, and stamped it as one of those 
favored spots, where the student finds the reward of his researches, 
in treasuring the most splendid gems of his collection. 

They are the luxuriant blossoms of mineral wealth, inviting 
mining labor by the promises of an abundant harvest. 



11 


In every raining district there are unmistakable signs to guide 
the first explorations of the miner to extract, from the dark recesses 
of the mines, the metallic ores, indispensable to human welfare. 
The gossans, or “iron hats" peculiar in their varieties for the 
different metals, mixed with fragments of vein stones, when con¬ 
stituting the outcrops of the veins are, with few exceptions, the 
indications of shallow ores, and are soon succeeded in depth by the 
numerous combinations of the metallic oxides, with different acids, 
carbonic, phosphoric, arsenic, molybdic, &c. 

The first workings at the Wheatley Mine have brought to light 
a large quantity of this rich class of ores, and their abundance 
gives a certitude of success, if they are properly husbanded, to pay, 
with their produce, the explorations necessary to open the mine 
in the region of the sulphurets, the normal ore in depth, poorer 
but more abundant, and to carry the works so as to keep always a 
judicious proportion between the extraction and the reserves of 
ores. 

Already those reserves may be estimated at a very large sum 
by the surface indications between the openings of the Wheatley 
Mine and the engine shaft of the Brookdale property. 

Those surface indications between the Wheatley and the Brook- 
dale shafts, by the character of the gossan, the fragments of vein 
stone, the very nature of the soil itself, are, for every experienced 
observer, the continuous outcrop of the vein stretching between 
those two points, distant about 2,100 feet, where the ores are yet 
undisturbed for a distance of about 1,500 feet. The openings in 
the Wheatley Mine have proven that the richest part of the vein 
runs in the direction of the Brookdale shaft, and the yet unim¬ 
portant works carried down in that shaft have shown the existence 
of rich ores up to that point, leaving no doubt as to the orey 
character of the vein on the whole distance. 

Those openings, those facts present, to an extent seldom found 
in mining enterprises, all the necessary elements for the calcula- 
tions of a prudent investment of capital. 

Like many new mining enterprises, after a most promising 
start, with all the necessary machinery and improvements erected 


at great cost, after raising 1,800 tons of rich silver lead ore from 
shallow workings, the Wheatley Mine was stopped for several 
years. 

The cause of this ill success being entirely independent of the 
productiveness of the mine, or of the difficulties encountered in 
the mining works, it is not in my province to recite here this.part 
of its history; suffice for me to say, that a metallic mine, like 
every manufacturing business, has two very distinct parts—the 
technical and the commercial. 

If from my examination of the rubbish around the shafts, I 
have to blame the dressing department, on the other hand the 
machinery, the improvements, the whole equipment and the pro¬ 
duction of the mine, show that the technical part was, on the 
whole, skilfully directed. For the commercial part, I will leave it 
to the judgment of business men, after stating that a contract 
was made to deliver to the Chester County Smelting Company 
the produce of the mine, at 4J cents per pound of metallic lead, 
the price of this metal being at that time, if my information is 
correct, 6J cents. 

The value of metallic lead being $110.66 a ton, the ores of 78 
per cent, lead, and 11.4 ounces of silver to the ton of metal, were 
sold in England for $66.78. 

In the United States, the value of metallic lead being $140 a 
ton, they ought to have received for the same class of ores $84.48 
instead of $50, according to the English standard. Consequently, 
the mine was losing on each ton delivered to the Smelting Com¬ 
pany $34.48, or 40.81 per cent, of their produce. 

What business would stand up in such conditions ? 

For the facility of the comparison, I have supposed that the 
Wheatley ores contained the same per-centage of silver as the 
English ores; but their richness in the precious metal is much 
superior, as shown by the results of numerous commercial sam¬ 
ples taken on a large scale. 

Lead being a cheap metal, the best disposition of the ores be¬ 
comes for a lead mine a vital question; and when, by careful 
calculations, it has been found, as is most often the case, that the 


13 


ores have to be smelted on the spot, the question of the metallur¬ 
gical process to be adopted requires great skill to discriminate 
between the different methods used for the smelting of lead, and 
for the introduction and adaptation of the one selected to a new 
locality. 

Again, in Chester County, the ores of the Wheatley Mine, emi¬ 
nently quartzoze, wmre smelted in reverberatory instead of blast 
furnaces, without any of the appliances that their complex chemi¬ 
cal composition rendered most necessary to avoid a large loss of 
metal. 

These important questions, I have no doubt, will engross the 
most earnest attention of a new company, because they will in¬ 
volve all the success that the prospects of the mine leave beyond 
doubt, if their management avoids those abysses where the 
richest returns of the mining operations would soon be sunk. 

I remain, sir, respectfully, your most obedient, 

EUGENE GAUSSOIN. 

Baltimore, Md., January , 1864. 


REPORT OF CAPTAIN JOSEPH COCKING. 

Phcenixville, November 27, 1863. 

Edward Frith, Esq. : 

Dear Sir ,—According to your request, I send you a statement 
of the present condition and future prospects of the Wheatley 
and Brookdale Mines, situated about two miles from Phoenix- 
ville, in Chester County, Pennsylvania. 

The Wheatley Mine was first started in the early part of 1851, 
with a small single-acting pumping engine of about forty-horse 
power. The engine shaft, which is placed one hundred and forty 
feet from the vein, on the surface, is fifty fathoms deep, or forty 
fathoms below the adit level, and is now within six or seven feet 
of the vein at that level. This shaft is still in good condition, 
with the pumps, rods, &c., all in place. 



14 


The vein in this mine varies in width from one to four feet, 
and will average about two feet wide. Near the surface, the vein 
is composed of a beautiful mineral gossan, with quartz, inter¬ 
spersed with phosphate of lead, and occasional good bunches of 
phosphate and galena. In the deeper levels it made good bunches 
of phosphate, carbonate and galena lead, and in the bottom level, 
forty fathoms below the adit, the vein is composed of quartz, cal- 
cite, and fluor-spar, with galena lead, zinc blende, and spots of 
yellow copper ore. In the present end, west of the engine shaft, 
the vein is over two feet wide, spotted through with galena lead, 
very compact and regular. The vein east of the engine shaft is 
not much developed below the ten-fathom level. 

I do not know the exact amount of lead ore that has been 
mined and sold from this mine, but it must be between 1600 and 
1800 tons, and the vein has yielded, on an average, about one ton 
of dressed ore from each square fathom of all the ground driven 
and stoped on the vein, throughout the length and depth of the 
mine. There are very few lead mines in this, or any other country, 
which have yielded better than this; but at the time this mine 
was in operation, the ore was sold for a very low price—the greater 
part of it was sold to the Chester County Smelting Company at 
the rate of $27 per ton for ore yielding 55 per cent, of lead, and $1 
for each 1 per cent, above 55 per cent. 

The phosphate and carbonate of lead, as dressed for the market, 
yield about 62 per cent. I sold a lot of lead ore from the adjoining 
mine, a few weeks ago, that yielded 62 per cent, of lead, and 
brought $78 a ton in New-York, which is more than double what 
the ore sold for from the Wheatley Mine. 

The average price of driving' and stoping on the vein, in the 
Wheatley Mine, cannot have been more than about $10 per 
fathom. The engine shaft, which has been hard and very ex¬ 
pensive for sinking, can now be sunk in the course of the vein 
below the forty-fathom level much cheaper, and will be proving 
the vein at the same time. 

The engine shaft at the Brookdale Mine is a little more than 
thirty fathoms deep, and is sunk all the way from the surface on 


15 


the course of the vein. The pumps, rods, ladders, &c., are all in 
the shaft, and I think, in good condition. 

The vein in this mine is composed of quartz, gossan, phosphate 
and carbonate of lead, and rich silver-bearing galena. The 
greatest workings in this mine are at the forty-fathom level, west 
of the engine shaft, where the vein varies from one to four, and 
even five feet wide. In the present end of this level the vein is 
between two and three feet wide, with good stones of lead in it. 
A little east of this end, and nearer to the engine shaft, the vein 
is five feet wide, composed of quartz and thickly spotted with yel¬ 
low copper ore, and looks promising to make very profitable in 
depth ; but as yet there are no levels driven under this ground. 

There is also a long piece of ground on the course of the vein, 
between the Wheatley and Brookdale Mines, altogether unde¬ 
veloped ; and I know no reason why this piece of ground should 
not prove as productive as any yet opened on the vein—driving 
the western levels at the Wheatley Mine towards the Brookdale 
Mine will unwater, and undoubtedly open good stoping ground. 

The pumping engine at the Brookdale Mine, with a little re¬ 
pair, is of sufficient power to work that mine for a long time ; 
but, at the Wheatley Mine, there will be a larger pumping engine 
required. With a good pumping engine at the Wheatley Mine, 
with other repairs and improvements necessary to put the mines 
in good working condition, and with careful management, I know 
of no better lead-mining property. It is worthy the attention of 
mining capitalists. 

I am, sir, yours respectfully, 

(Signed) JOSEPH COCKING. 


NEW-YORK AND BOSTON SILVER-LEAD MINES. 

SCHEDULE 

Of the Real and Personal Estate, Steam Engines, Mining Machinery, &c. 

AT THE WHEATLEY MINE— 

Sixty-horse power, high pressure, “bull” pumping engine, single, 
twenty-four inch cylinder, six feet stroke, with boilers complete, 



16 


balance bob, capstan, sheers and rope, thirty fathoms fourteen- 
inch plunger lift, and ten fathoms twelve inch drawing lift, rods 
and pitwork complete to the fifty-fathom level (from grass), water 
wheel to drive crushers and stamps, Cornish crusher, rill wheel 
and crushing house, stamps, round buddle, horse whim, iron 
kibbles and proved Newcastle coil chain for whim, wore ropes, 
blacksmiths’, carpenters’, dressing and mining tools; iron and 
steel screwing stocks, dies and sundry tools and materials 
for working the mines; stone engine-house, boiler-house, and 
stack; carpenters’ and blacksmiths’ shops, material and assaying 
houses, large double frame office, with office furniture, cases (for 
specimens) of black walnut, black walnut desks and cabinets, two 
iron safes, one Delano’s and one Herring’s Salamander, maps, 
plans and specimens, platform scales, launders, wheelbarrows, &c. 

REAL AND PERSONAL ESTATE. 

The Wheatley Farm, forty-six to forty-seven acres land in fee 
simple, on which the Wheatley Mines are situate. Stone mansion 
house and the furniture complete (which cost from $1,000 to 
$1,500), wagon house and carriage (to seat six persons), out 
kitchen, ice-house, green-house, &c, large stone barn, two-story 
framed captain’s house and spring house, and fourteen excellent 
miners’ cottages, with gardens to each, all neatly fenced sepa¬ 
rately. 

Three-fourths of the mineral right in fee simple on Funk and 
Williams’s tracts, on about 100 acres adjoining Wheatley Farm, 
through which the Wheatley vein runs to Brookdale Mine, and on 
which Brookdale Mine is situate. 

AT BROOKDALE MINE. 

Sixty-horse power “bull engine,” high pressure, with boilers com¬ 
plete, twenty-four inch cylinder, six feet stroke, sheers rope, 
thirty-two fathoms pumps, pitwork horse whim, kibbles and 
chains, stone-engine house, boiler house and stack, blacksmiths’ 
and carpenters’ shops, and office. 


17 


AT FHCENJX AND CHARLESTOWN MINES. 

Sixty-horse, low pressure, beam engine, condensing twenty-lbur- 
ineh cylinder, five-feet stroke, with fly-wheel and beam over cyl¬ 
inder, cylinder upright —a splendid “ Cornish whim engine," to 
pump, crush and hoist, with iron Cornish steam whim connected 
to the engine — built by J. P. Morris & Co., Philadelphia, from 
drawings furnished by John West; boilers, stone engine-house, 
boiler-house, stack and office, thirty-seven fathoms pumps and 
other pitwork “ at grass." 

AT MORRIS MINE. 

One hundred and fifty horse-power, high pressure,’ pumping 
engine, twenty-eight and a half inch cylinder, nine feet stroke, 
double, (the fly-wheel weighs twenty-five tons,) with extra strong 
gearing, iron connecting-rod, sweep-rod and strapping-plates com¬ 
plete, large balance bob; boilers, thirty fathoms sixteen-inch 
drawing-lifts, with the necessary pitwork, capstan, sheers and rope. 
Also condensing work to alter the engine to a low pressure, if 
•required. 

3 


SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT. 


The following Reports on the New York and Boston Silver 
Lead Mines were made from 1852 to 1854, by Prof. H. D. Rogers, 
now of Glasgow, Scotland, formerly Geologist of the State of 
Pennsylvania. It will be observed that the estimates of value 
were based upon prices which were not over onedialf to one- 
third of those which the same ores would at present command, 
the value of the metals having advanced in a higher ratio than 
that of wages. 




REPORTS 


PROFESSOR HENRY D. ROGERS, 

ON 

WHEATLEY, BROOKDALE & CHARLESTOWN MINES, 

PHCENIXVILLE. CHESTER COUNTY, PA. 


Boston, February 5, 1852. 

Charles M. Wheatley, Esq. : 

Dear Fir ,—You have asked me to express to you frankly my 
impressions respecting the value, as a mining district, of the min¬ 
eral belt of country which ranges across the Schuylkill River, 
near the Perkiomen and Pickering Creeks, in Montgomery and 
Chester Counties. I willingly comply with your request; for I 
deem it but right and fair, that I should candidly avow to you, 
and to all persons interested in the prosperity of the region re¬ 
ferred to, the convictions I have arrived at from the study I have 
thus far been able to make of the mineral veins and mines of 
your neighborhood. Most sincerely do I wish to see the vast 
native resources of every part of our gifted State of Pennsylvania 
receive the recognition and development which they deserve. I 
am, therefore, as free to speak hopefully of a mineral district 
which offers unquestionable geological evidences of wealth, as I 
would be prompt to dissuade from investments that rest on no 
such proofs. 

In giving you my views of the probable value of the mineral 
zone of Montgomery and Chester, I wish to say that I have not 
yet completed my examination of its mining resources, and that 
possibly my conceptions may be somewhat modified upon a 



20 


closer acquaintance with the ground. I think, however, that a 
more detailed investigation of the veins will tend to strengthen, 
not to impair, the convictions I have come to. 

I hesitate not to declare that I entertain a very firm belief that 
your region is destined to become, at an early day, a quite impor¬ 
tant mining district,, where regularly wrought mines of the ores 
of lead and copper, especially the former, will return steady and 
remunerative profits upon the exercise of proper skill and pru¬ 
dence. 

This opinion, now much more confidently entertained by me 
than in former years, I rest upon observations I made last spring, 
and again during a recent visit, which exposed to me a number of 
important facts connected with the veins containing ores of lead 
and copper, going all to indicate, with more or less of positive¬ 
ness, the permanency and productiveness of the yield of the 
veins. 

The feature, quite familiar to yourself, of the remarkable regu¬ 
larity and parallelism of the mineral lodes, is itself an excellent 
indication of their constancy, as all analogy with similar groups 
of mineral lodes plainly teaches. 

Another fact which should give you encouragement is the ex¬ 
ceedingly well-defined character of these mineral lodes, which do 
not spread and lose themselves or their ores in the adjoining 
strata, to more than a very trivial extent at least, but insulate 
themselves from the rock of the country by plainlyjmarked par¬ 
allel walls, between which, as between the cheeks of so many 
great fissures, all the metallic ores of the region and associated 
gangue-stones are contained. This essential feature of productive 
metalliferous veins or lodes is here displayed as conspicuously as 
in any mineral country known. 

Some of the veins are of a length already explored and opened, 
of several hundred yards, or even several hundred fathoms, and 
display, moreover, all the well-admitted proofs of being true in¬ 
trusive lodes , having, that is to say, regular walls, filled with igne¬ 
ous minerals and metallic ores, and showing great continuity as 
fissures both in their direction and their dip. These features cer- 


21 


tainly justify a belief that when opened in greater length and 
depth for extensive and economical mining, the veins will be 
steadily remunerative. 

The veins which I have seen bear all the external marks of true 
and regular metalliferous lodes. These proofs are to be found in 
the mineral nature of their gossans, or the weathered vein-stones at 
their outcrops. They give other indications of their internal me¬ 
tallic wealth, by their retaining over great lengths not only their gen¬ 
eral average thickness, but the average proportion and distribution 
of their metallic ores. The constancy of the mineral nature of the 
materials of the same veins is also another quite encouraging symp¬ 
tom of their richness. A farther very important feature is the 
gradation we witness in passing downwards from the outcrops of 
these veins. First, we have only the vein-stones with nearly the 
whole of the metalliferous substances weathered out or dissolved. 
Then, at a few fathoms below the surface, we find, mingled with 
these vein-stones, those metallic ores of lead, copper and zinc, 
which are known to be the most readily vaporized by heat; and 
deeper still, the same vein-stones containing these last combina¬ 
tions of the metals in constantly lessening proportion, united with 
more and more of the sulphurets and those other permanent ores 
which, in all copper and lead-mining countries, are regarded as the 
most reliable and persistent forms in which these metals are 
known. 

Respecting the Wheatley Lode, to which you have called my 
attention, I am frank to admit that though not yet developed for 
more than a few hundred feet in length, or penetrated in depth 
beyond the first few shallow levels, it shows all those favorable 
conditions of gradations in the value of its minerals, and all the 
other features of regularity to which I have above appealed as 
being in their indications so full of encouragement and promise. 
Even already this mine appears to be in a sound producing condh 
tion. 

The Charlestown Vein, laid open by a surface adit for more 
than eight hundred feet of its length, and traceable by the vein¬ 
stones on its outcrop for a considerably greater distance, though 


22 


but newly and superficially developed, bears all the marks of 
being, like the Wheatley Vein, a genuine lead-bearing lode of ex¬ 
cellent promise. Its walls are regularly formed, its course is 
quite straight enough, and is precisely parallel with those of the 
productive veins of the region, while its vein-stones betoken the 
same metallic ores at a deeper level which occur in the Wheatley 
Lode and other adjacent veins of the district. Though this vein 
has not as yet been penetrated deep enough to furnish you very 
positive estimates to proceed upon, the features I have mentioned 
and its superior width justify you, I firmly think, in making every 
judicious effort in your power to explore and open it, with a view 
to mining it on a scale commensurate with its promise. All min¬ 
ing in metalliferous lodes is confessedly somewhat riskful, but I 
am free to say that for a mineral district so newly opened and in¬ 
adequately mined, this tract of Montgomery and Chester presents 
as few discouraging phenomena and as many auspicious indica¬ 
tions to invite to enterprise and to call for encouragement as will 
be met with in any similar ore-yielding region. 

I need not say what a boon and blessing your mining district 
will prove itself to be to the industrial prosperity of the whole of 
this quarter of Pennsylvania, should your efforts and those of 
others, who, like you, are enlisting their best energies to call some 
of its hidden wealth to the surface, realize the hopes which appear¬ 
ances strongly encourage me to indulge for you. 

Yours, with sincere respect, 

HENRY D. ROGERS. 


Boston, February , 1852. 

To Charles M. Wheatley, Esq.: 

Sir ,—In compliance with your request, I submit the following 
short Report of my observations upon the two lead-bearing veins 
called the Wheatley and Charlestown Lodes, in the vicinity of 
Pickering Creek, in Chester County, Pennsylvania, of which yon 
have asked a scientific examination and opinion. I would pre¬ 
mise that I have visited the locality twice : first in the month of 



23 

May last, and again recently, during this winter, and that upon 
the last occasion I explored these mineral masses, and studied 
every level, shaft and other excavation by which their contents 
have thus far been exposed to view. 

These veins belong to a group of lead and copper-bearing lodes 
of a very interesting character, which form a metalliferous zone, 
which ranges in a general east and west direction across the 
Schuylkill River, near the lower stretches of the Perkiomen and 
Pickering Creeks in Montgomery and Chester Counties, and bids 
fair to constitute, at no distant day, a quite productive mineral 
region. 

The individual veins of this rather numerous group, are remark¬ 
able for their general mutual parallelism, their average course 
being about N. 31°—35° E. by compass, and not at all coincident 
with that of the belt of country which embraces them. They are 
true lodes or mineral injections, filling so many dislocations or 
fissures, transverse to the general direction of the strata which 
they intersect. The metalliferous belt ranges not far from the 
boundary which divides the gneissic or metamorphic rocks of 
Chester County from the middle secondary red shale and sand¬ 
stone strata, and some of the veins—for example, that of the 
Wheatley Mine—cut across this boundary, and penetrate alike 
the older rocks and the overlapping more horizontal red shale. 
From the general parallelism of all these lodes, and their marked 
agreement in mineral characters and accompaniments, we are 
forced to infer that they are all of one epoch of injection. But 
as some of them rise through the red shale or newest stratum of 
the country, it is plain that the date of their origin was either just 
at the close, or at some period subsequent to the close, of this sec¬ 
ondary formation, the geological age of which is that of the trias 
sic* strata of Europe. Apparently of the same agef are the vari¬ 
ous trap dykes which intersect the same red shale formation 
throughout its range from the Hudson to the Potomac, and also in 


* Possibly, of the earliest oolitic age. 

f See, in next Report, proofs that some, at least, of those lodes are newer than 
the dykes. 



24 


the valley of the Connecticut, and which, in very many places, 
show ores of copper, zinc and lead in more or less intimate con¬ 
nection with them along their lines of contact with the strata they 
penetrate. Such injections, seemingly derived from the trap at its 
outflow, are, for the most part, only irregular and diffused impreg¬ 
nations of the rocks by the more easily sublimed of the metallif¬ 
erous ores, and have, in no instance that I know of, afforded a body 
of mineral matter of metallic richness and quantity sufficient to 
repay the cost of systematic mining. But the mines of the district 
before us, though possibly of the same daie of origin,* are wholly 
different in their geological associations, being neither sublima-. 
tions nor exudations of the metallic minerals from Trappean 
dykes, but true independent narrow injections, -which throughout 
are highly metalliferous, and have their own special vein-stones 
unlike those of the non-metallic dykes of the country. 

Restricting my present more detailed remarks to the Wheatley 
and Charlestown Veins, which more particularly interest you, I beg 
to describe the first-named of these first, as it is the best developed 
of the two by mining, though probably not the largest, and as we 
shall be the better able to understand what the other fairly pro¬ 
mises by witnessing in what this resembles it, and what it de¬ 
finitely discloses. In the slightly developed condition of the 
Charlestown Lode, we must be guided necessarily by analogy 
with other better opened veins ; yet in cases of this sort, analogy, 
if strictly scientific, is ever our safest basis of calculation, as it is 
oftentimes a truer and less treacherous conductor to what is hid¬ 
den in the mineral world than many positive exposures, if these 
are not interpreted in accordance with general principles. 

The Wheatley Vein extends from near Pickering Creek, not far 
from the bridge on the White Horse road in Schuylkill township, 
and runs about S. 34° W., beginning to be lead-bearing near the 
creek in the red shale, but proving itself to be more productive in 
the soft gneissic strata, which it soon enters in its course south¬ 
wards. It has been actually traced for about 1,200 feet, and sur- 


* Subsequently corrected in next Report. 




I 

25 

face fragments of its vein-stones indicate it to range at least one- 
quarter of a mile farther. It is nearly straight, seldom ranging 
more than five or six feet out of a right line in any length of one 
hundred feet, and soon resuming its prevailing direction. It dips 
towards the S. E. steeply, underlying about eighteen inches in the 
fathom. 

This vein varies in thickness from a few inches to about two 
and a-half feet, and we may state its average width at not less than 
eighteen inches. It is bounded by regular and well-defined, 
nearly parallel walls, the prevailing material of which is a coarse, 
soft granite, composed chiefly of white felspar and quartz. Some¬ 
times the usual gneiss of the district is in immediate contact with 
the vein. This binary felspathic granite would seem to be a very 
common accompaniment of the metalliferous lodes of the district; 
but whether it and the ores were intruded into the strata together, 
and afterwards separated at the time of solidification of the melted 
materials, or whether the granite rose first in dykes and the metal¬ 
lic veins followed up through the cracks which these opened, are 
points which remain to be investigated. The occurrence of this 
granitic matter in the sides of the Wheatley Vein, I regard as a 
good symptom. 

The mine, as it presents itself at this date, namely, the end of 
January, 1852, has its engine-shaft sunk to the depth of about 135 
feet. Westward from this shaft, the vein is rich for 80 feet on the 
lower level, which is 120 feet below the soil, then poor for 48 feet, 
then quite rich again for 110 feet, and again thinner for 20 feet to 
the present point of the working in this direction. Eastward from 
the shaft, the vein is poor for the first 96 feet, but farther forward, 
through a length of 30 feet, to the present end of the level, it has 
an average width of ore-ground of twenty inches, and the ore in 
the next level above this one, indicates that this degree of richness 
continues a good distance at least, farther in both directions. In 
this vein, as in all others of the district, it is noticeable that near 
the surface, or at the outcrop, the lode is poor in metallic ores, and 
indeed is almost wholly destitute of them for some feet, and in 
places for some fathoms beneath the soil. Descending, we first 
4 


20 


find, mingled with the gossans or vein-stones, the phosphate, car¬ 
bonate, and the other readily dissipated ores of lead ; then, still 
deeper in the vein, an increasing proportion of the sulphuret or 
galena. This galena, and indeed the phosphate likewise, contains 
a very notable proportion of silver, quite sufficient in some parts 
of the mine to repay the cost of excavating those portions. 

A careful discrimination of the proportion and size of the pro¬ 
ductive portions of the lode, leads to the conclusion that these 
parts of it will average about two tons of good ore, composed of 
galena and phosphate of lead to each square fathom of the wall of 
the vein. And regarding the quantity in these available positions, 
now laid open between the lowest and the next or surface-level, 
we may safely estimate the whole amount of ore accessible in the 
existing workings as equivalent to 30 fathoms in length by 9 
fathoms in height, or 270 square fathoms, or equivalent to some 
540 tons of good ore. To this I find we must add some 160 tons 
of ore standing above the upper adit, or already raised to the sur¬ 
face, making a total of about 700 tons. This, at the computed 
value given it of $40 per ton, is worth $28,000, or about the actual 
cost, as I am informed, of the whole mine up to the present date. 
It ought to be here observed, that the cost of extracting and lift¬ 
ing the ore, now rendered accessible in the mine by the newly cut 
level or adit, is quite trivial in comparison with that already in¬ 
curred. It is estimated by the mine captain not to exceed $3 50 
per ton, including the dressing and washing of the ore. And I 
have reason to accept his calculations as correct. 

This aspect of the Wheatley Vein is certainly a very cheering 
one when we reflect that the mine has not been opened much more 
than a year. That the lode will retain at deeper levels the average 
degree of richness it exhibits in the present workings, I see no 
reason whatever to doubt, but am inclined to think that its pro¬ 
portions of galena and silver may, if anything, augment. When 
the mine shall have become more extensively opened, and the dis¬ 
tribution of its productive, and its dead mineral grounds better 
understood, it is obvious that the metalliferous parts may be 
selected for mining at a less proportionate expenditure than at 


I 

27 

present, and the gain in economy from this source will, perhaps, 
overbalance any increase in the cost of mining at greater depths 
from augmentation in the hardness of the materials of the vein. 

The Charlestown Yein, to which I shall now advert, lies to the 
westward of the Wheatley Vein more than half a mile. It is 
almost strictly parallel with it in direction, and is separated from 
it by two or three lead lodes parallel to both. This vein has been 
opened by a water-level or adit, south-westward from its north¬ 
eastern end for a length of more than 800 feet, and is traceable 
much farther towards the south-west bv its surface vein-stones or 

J 

gossans, which are stained with phosphate of lead. It is a regular 
lode, having quite well-defined bounding walls, though inasmuch 
as the present adit is nowhere at a greater depth beneath the soil 
than thirty-eight or forty feet, and the whole vein is in a somewhat 
decomposed state, these walls are not everywhere as well marked 
as they will be farther dowm. It occurs in the gneiss, which it 
cuts somewhat transversely. This gneiss dips towards the south 
at angles from 45° to 60°, while the vein itself has a dip or underlie 
of 70° or more towards the south-east. The walls of the lode are 
chiefly granitic gneiss and granite, the felspar of the granite being 
half decomposed. Its course is nearly straight, being about S. 32° 
W. with occasional local deflections. In thickness, it would seem 
materially to exceed the Wheatley Lode, being at least from two 
to two and a-lialf feet wide, and in some places four feet, and even 
more. 

Near the surface, the lode retains very little metallic ore, and 
even in the shallow adit now alone opened in it, we meet only 
with some of the phosphate and carbonate of lead, with a little 
galena. Yet, notwithstanding this present poorness in metallifer¬ 
ous matter, so nearly identical are its vein stones with those of 
the Wheatley Yein, where there was a nearly equal destitution 
of metallic ores at the same shallow depth, that I hesitate not to 
pronounce it, from all its external and general indications, quite 
as promising a repository of lead. Possibly, the proportion of 
productive ore in the vein, to unproductive mineral matter, may 
exceed that in the other mine ; yet it is fully one-half wider be- 


28 


tween its walls; and this fact, and the increased cheapness of 
mining thereby caused, will probably quite compensate any com¬ 
parative difference in richness. Its greater width is very probably 
one cause of its gossans showing less ore at a corresponding shal¬ 
low level below the soil; for the decomposition of the mineral 
materials has from this cause manifestly penetrated to a greater 
relative depth. 

I cannot but deem this mine wmll worthy of being explored and 
wrought on a scale of judicious magnitude until its true produc¬ 
tiveness shall be established. It is certainly amply inviting 
enough to encourage an expenditure sufficient to lay open the 
vein to a depth of, say twenty-five to thirty fathoms. A less 
thorough exploration will, probably, from the magnitude of the 
vein, not prove satisfactory, nor truly economical in the event of 
that success which you may reasonably anticipate from all the 
analogies between this lode and the Wheatley and other veins of 
promise in the same metalliferous belt. Considering the shallow 
depth to which it is as yet exposed, it exhibits every indication 
in its geological and mineral features to invite your enterprise. 
But only time and a competent outlay of capital will enable you 
to ascertain the true amount of real wealth it may contain. 

Yours, very respectfully, 

HENRY D. ROGERS. 


May ls£, 1853. 

Charles M. Wheatley, Esq.: 

Dear Sir ,—Obedient to your wish, that I would again inspect 
and report upon the mineral veins in the vicinity of Pickering 
Creek, in Chester County, Pennsylvania, I beg leave to lay before 
you the following statements of what I have observed, and give 
you my impressions respecting the probable future productiveness 
of some of these lodes. 

For the sake of greater distinctness, I will, after first offering a 
few remarks on the geological relations of the metalliferous lodes 
of the district, generally, serving to prove that these are genuine 



t 


29 


mineral veins , submit a brief report upon the conditions and pros¬ 
pects of each of the mines now opened under your superintend¬ 
ence. 


GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS OF THE MINERAL VEINS. 

The metalliferous lodes or veins of the district extending from 
the Perkiomen Mines in Montgomery County, to the Charlestown 
Mines in Chester County, occur as already stated in a previous 
report, not far from the boundary which separates the gneissic 
rocks of this region from the Middle Secondary formation of red 
shale and sandstone. Some of them would seem to lie entirely in 
the one set of strata, and some of them in the other ; while others 
again, especially the interesting group of the Pickering Creek 
Veins—on the economical prospects of which I propose to venture 
some opinions—are partly within the gneiss and partly within the 
red shale, penetrating the latter, however, to apparently a trivial 
extent. It would seem to be a pretty general fact that such of 
these veins as are confined entirely or chiefly to the gneiss, bear 
lead as their principal metal; whereas those which are included 
solely within the red shale are characterized by containing the 
ores of copper. But the zinc ores, viz., zinc blende and calamine, 
prevail in greater or less proportions in both sets of veins, existing, 
perhaps, in a rather larger relative amount in the copper-bearing 
lodes of the red shale. Thus, the Perkiomen and Ecton Lode; 
the United Mine Lode; the Shannonville South Lode; a small 
lode on French Creek; a lode at Port Kennedy, and the Morris 
Lode, near Phoenixville, are all genuine copper veins, and they 
are all, without exception, in the red shale formation. 

On the other hand, the Wheatley and Brookdale Lode, the 
Chester County Lode, the Montgomery Lode, and the Charlestown 
Lode, with other adjoining ones of the same group at present more 
imperfectly developed, all lying within the gneissic rocks, or if 
extending into the red shale not explored beyond its mere margin, 
are equally genuine lead veins. This interesting general fact is 
not presented, however, as an invariable law, unattended by ex¬ 
ceptions, for it must be observed that several of the lead veins of 


30 


the gneiss actually enter the red shale ; two of them, the Wheatley 
and the Chester County Lodes, carrying their ores of lead and the 
usually accompanying vein-stones into this rock, while some of 
the others enumerated are traceable still farther within its bound¬ 
ary by their characteristic surface-fragments. Nevertheless, in all 
these cases, the red shale formation which they penetrate is a very 
thin and superficial capping, or unconformable covering to the 
gneissic strata, within which, even here, the chief body of the 
veins must be contained below this shallow depth. Thus, even 
in these instances, the exceptions to the rule are more apparent 
than real. But partial deviations from the law, of another sort, 
are met with ; some of the lead veins of the gneissic strata contain 
traces, more or less abundant, of the ores of copper, and, more 
strikingly, very considerable proportions of lead ore are occasion¬ 
ally associated with the copper ores in the copper veins of the red 
shale, especially in the lodes of the Ecton and United Mines. 
Yet, even in these last-mentioned instances, which are the most 
conspicuous exceptions to the general rule yet brought to light in 
the district, the proportions of lead ore to copper ore are quite 
subordinate, when estimated for each entire lode. 

The gneissic strata of the tract embracing this group of lead- 
bearing veins, seem to differ in no essential features from the rest 
of the formation ranging eastward and westward through this belt 
of country. Here, as elsewhere, they consist chiefly of soft thinly 
bedded micaceous gneiss, a more dense and ferruginous horn- 
blendic gneiss, and thirdly a thicker bedded granitic gneiss, 
composed not unfrequently of little else than the two minerals, 
quartz and felspar. 

Penetrating this quite diversified formation are innumerable in¬ 
jections of various kinds of granite, greenstone trap, and other 
genuine igneous rocks. The granites, as throughout this region 
generally, consist for the most part, of a coarse binary mixture of 
quartz and opaque white felspar, tending easily to decomposition. 
This rock abounds in the form of dykes and veins, sometimes 
cutting the strata of gneiss nearly vertically, but often partiallv 
conforming with its plaues of bedding for a limited space, and 


t 

81 

then branching through, or expiring in it in transverse or tortuous 
branches. A not uncommon variety of granitic dyke is a simple 
sienite composed of quartz, greenish semi-translucent felspar, and 
a smaller proportion of dark green hornblende. A soft, white 
and partially decomposed granite, is a very frequent associate of 
the stronger lead-bearing veins, particularly in their more pro¬ 
ductive portions ; but this material belongs, in all probability, not 
to the ancient granitic injections of the gneiss, but to those much 
later metalliferous intrusions which filled long parallel rents in 
that formation with the lead ores and their associated minerals. 
It appears to be, in fact, of the same date of origin with these 
metalliferous lodes, and may be viewed as derived in part or 
altogether from the fusion of the intersected gneiss, by the in¬ 
tensely hot mineral matter of the vein brought into close contact 
with the walls of the fissure. The melted constituents of the 
gneiss have thus floated up along the sides of the true vein, and 
re-crystallized upon cooling in chief abundance upon the exterior 
of the lode. Soft granitic matter of this sort very frequently 
adjoins the hanging walls of the less steeply pitching lodes of 
magnetic iron ore in New Jersey and New-York, and it would 
naturally tend to place itself in this position from its superior 
lightness compared with the metallic matters. 

The gneissic strata and their granitic injections, throughout this 
district, display a softened, partially decomposed condition, ex¬ 
tending in many places to a depth of several fathoms. This 
rotted state does not, however, pervade these materials to as great 
a depth as it does in the belt of gneiss lying south of the Chester 
County Valley and nearer the level of the tide. To its influence we 
must impute the fertility of the soils resting on the formation, and 
the soft lines of the landscape. Its origin is due, in part, at least, 
I think, to the action of the sea-water, which once evidently 
rested over all this southern edge of the low Atlantic slope of the 
country, dissolving by chemical forces the more soluble ingredients 
of the felspar, hornblende, and mica. 

Immediately adjoining some of the mineral veins at the Wheat- 

lev and Chester Countv Lodes, the gneiss is softened and decom- 

*/ * 


32 


posed to a very considerable depth, and, in some places, in a very 
thorough manner; the more micaceous beds being converted into 
a crumbling purplish-red, unctuous and clayey material, easily 
crushed in the hand, though taken from a depth of many fathoms. 
This condition, which has much facilitated the cutting of the 
upper adits of these lodes, is the result, in all probability, of a 
chemical influence exerted on the materials of the strata by some 
of the elements which belong to the veins, or which passed up 
through the fissures they fill at the time of their injection. 
Highly heated steam and other volcanic vapors have manifestly 
been the agents of many of the changes we witness in the walls of 
our igneous veins. At the same time, it must be borne in mind 
that, near the surface, the penetration of external water and its 
carbonic acid, and free oxygen along the sides of the lodes may 
have assisted this decomposition ; and there can be no doubt that 
these elements, thus introduced, by leading to chemical changes 
and replacements in the constituents of the lodes, have caused 
the formation of several of the minerals we find, the carbonates 
and sulphates, for example, which are usually met with in the 
cavities and nests of the veins. 

The dip of the gneiss throughout this district is generally about 
S. 20° E., and seldom at any high angle, the most common being 
30°—40° ; but this direction and inclination are, in some cases, 
much affected by contact with the veins. These cut or intersect 
the beds of gneiss, both in strike and dip, even where they seem, 
by the violence of the disruption at the formation of the vein, to 
have twisted the strata from their ordinary bearings. This inter¬ 
section or cutting shows these to be true lodes. 

Of the general relations of the mineral veins of the district to each 
other, enough is already known to convince us that these lodes 
are physically associated as members of one natural group of 
igneous injections, and to inspire a belief not only that this is a 
genuine mineral region, but that the distribution of its metallic 
wealth is controlled by definite and ascertainable laws. 

Of the one dozen or more lead and copper lodes of greater or less 
size brought to light in this quite limited region of five or six 


miles length and two or three miles breadth, the greater number 
are remarkably similar in their course, ranging N. 32°—35° E., 
and S. 32°—35° AY.; and what is equally worthy of note, they 
dip, with scarcely an exception, towards the same quarter, or 
south-eastwardly, though in some instances so steeply as to approach 
the perpendicular. Those which do not observe this direction, 
seem, as far as traced, to range 1ST. 52°—54° E. and S. 52°—54° 
AY., and by their mutual parallelism to each other to constitute, as 
it were, a second subordinate group or system of veins. There 
are one or two other lodes again, such as the counter-lode of the 
United Mine, which range at even a less angle to the meridian 
than the first or principal set, or about 1ST. 26° E. 

The point of chief interest is the wonderfully close parallelism 
of the more numerous group embracing the larger and more 
promising veins of the district. 

There is no marked difference in the general character of the 
vein-stones of the several mineral lodes, nor any features to 
distinguish as a class those of the red shale from those of the 
gneiss, nor again those observing the normal direction of 
N. 34° E. from those of the more exceptional direction of 1ST. 53° E. 
Yet, each vein possesses certain special subordinate characteristics 
in both its non-metallic minerals and its ores, and even in its 
surface vein-stones and gossans, by which the initiated observer 
will recognize its individuality. 

The predominant material in all these lodes is quartz, then 
sulphuret of iron; next to this, perhaps, is the sulphate of baryta, 
though this is a much more variable ingredient, being scarcely 
seen in the AVheatley and Chester County Yeins, while in others, 
as in Charlestown, Morris and the United Mines, it is in great 
abundance ; besides these, there occur frequently the materials of 
the walls of the veins, but in a more or less altered condition; 
such are the soft, white, felspathic granites in some of the lead- 
veins, conspicuous, for example, in parts of the AYheatley Mine, 
and the altered shale and sandstone fragments involved with the 
ore in the Morris Lode. These veins are recognized and traced on 
their “ backs” or outcrops, by their chunks of indestructible vein- 


34 


stones, chiefly cellular quartz and sulphate of baryta, and by their 
gossans or masses of pulverulent oxide of iron and ochreous earth, 
interlaced with quartz, or filling cavities in the lumps of this 
mineral, and still more definitely by the presence of the metallic 
ores, sometimes well preserved in the cavities, or in the body of 
these fragments, or oftener only in stains and surface-coatings of 
the phosphate of lead or the carbonate of copper. 

The different lodes differ more, perhaps, in the amount and dis¬ 
tinctness of the gossan which they show on their backs and in 
their higher levels, than in almost any other particulars. In this 
excellent indication of a good and remunerative metalliferous 
vein, an abundance of soft brown gossan, perhaps none of the 
lodes of the region will compare with that of the Wheatley Mine. 
This material, the product evidently of the decomposition of the 
sulphuret of iron of the vein, often contains, in this Wheatley 
Lode, especially at some depth below the surface, a very appreciable 
trace of silver, derived most probably from the decomposition of 
argentiferous galena, which is one of the characteristic ores of the 
vein. Sundry assays of its gossans show an average proportion 
of about ten ounces of silver to a ton of the material. 

The metalliferous and other minerals found in these veins, form 
quite a numerous list. 

Selecting the Wheatley Lode as presenting perhaps the greatest 
diversity of species, and as that which has received altogether the 
closest study, we find the mineralogy of these veins represented 
by the following large and interesting catalogue :— 

Sulphate of lead, carbonate of lead, phosphate of lead, ar- 
seniate of lead, molybdate of lead, chromate of lead, chro¬ 
momolybdate of lead, arsenio-phosphate of lead, sulphuret of 
lead, antimonial sulphuret of lead and silver, sulphuret of zinc, 
carbonate of zinc, silicate of zinc, sulphuret of copper, green 
malachite, blue malachite, black oxide of copper, native copper, 
oxide of manganese, native sulphur, native silver, quartz, cellular 
quartz, oxide of iron containing silver, haematite iron, brown spar } 
sulphate of barytes and iron pyrites. 


9 

85 

THE WHEATLEY LODE AND ITS MINES. 

Since my former Report on the Wheatley and Charlestown 
Veins, Mr. Wheatley, the skilful superintendent of the mines 
established on these lodes, has discovered, and developed to some 
extent, a prolongation of the Wheatley Vein, entitled the “Brook- 
dale Lode.” That this is really but the extension of the first- 
named vein, is apparent from its lying precisely in its course, the 
line connecting them not deviating, in fact, the amount of half a 
degree in a distance from the north-eastern end of the Wheatley 
levels, of more than 8,000 feet to the engine-shaft on the back of 
the Brookdale portion. It is farthermore confirmed by the cor¬ 
respondence in the direction of the dip of the two veins, but es¬ 
pecially by the close agreement, amounting to identity, between 
the vein-stones and ores of the respective lodes. 

This remarkably regular silver lead vein, already one of the 
most extensive as respects its developed length in the country, has 
now been opened and is being mined at intervals along a range of 
about 8,072 feet. It is first approached, from near the water level, 
from the south-west side of Pickering Creek by an adit cross-cut 
of 410 feet through the red shale ; the distance thence from this 
point, where the adit turns into the lode to the cross-cut leading 
from the vein to the main or engine-shaft, is 540 feet; thence along 
the vein to the most western point now reached in the Wheatley 
Mine, which is, in the ten-fathom level, 571 feet, making a total 
length here wrought to this date, the 1st of May* 1853, of 1,111 
feet. The main adit level, including the part in the red shale, is 
1,279 feet long. Between the Wheatley and Brookdale engine- 
shafts, the distance on the lode is 2,076 feet, and at the Brookdale 
Mine the lode has been opened by an adit level a farther length 
of 456 feet, making in all the developed length already specified 
of 3,072 feet. That the lode is prolonged several hundred feet 
beyond the present termination of the adit of the Brookdale Mine, 
is evident to any careful observer; for the surface is marked in 
the vicinity of the course of the vein for this space, by chunks of 
cellular quartz, containing the well-known gossan of the vein, and 
even its distinctive ores and minerals, in quite significant clearness 


36 


and abundance. It is certainly an encouraging feature in the vein 
that it thus so well preserves all its characters over so consider¬ 
able a length. Although there intervenes a space of about 1,501 
feet between the south-west workings of the Wheatley Mine and 
the north-east openings of the Brookdale, within which the lode 
has not yet been sought for nor proved, I conceive there can be 
no doubt that it maintains itself continuously through this in¬ 
terval, and is a regular persistent vein between the widest limits 
above mentioned. 

In width, this vein varies from one foot to two or two and a half 
feet, its average size in the Wheatley Mine being about eighteen 
inches, and in the Brookdale adit, nearly two feet. Thus far, it 
gives all the indications of being about as productive in ore in the 
latter mine at an equal depth as it is in the former. While the 
Brookdale end is somewhat thicker than the other, it is rather 
more full of quartz; yet the adit there, which is only some thirty 
feet below the surface, and is at present rather more than 456 feet 
long, presents, for 400 feet, what miners would call a “ kindly 
lode for ore,” with quartz, gossan, phosphate of lead, carbonate of 
lead and galena; growing somewhat poorer, however, farther to* 
wards the south-western end. The Brookdale shaft, descending 
on the lode, is down but 75 feet as yet, but the lode seems gradu¬ 
ally to improve as the sinking advances.* 

The dip of the lode in the Wheatley Mine is about two and a 
half feet to the fathom, or sixty-eight degrees ; while it is steeper 
in the Brookdale end, being there about eighteen inches per fa¬ 
thom, or seventy-six degrees. Its mineralogical characters have 
been sufficiently described already, when presenting it as the type 
of the more promising lead-bearing lodes of this district; it may 
be well enough, however, in this place, to call attention to what 
has been said under the head of “ General Remarks” upon these 
veins, respecting the prevalence of a soft felspathic granite on its 


* At this date, August 1, 1853, the shaft is down 110 feet; and a level, at 90 
feet depth and 20 fathoms long, exhibits a much richer condition than the adit 
level above. 



37 


i 


walls, a soft rich gossan in its upper levels containing silver, and 
the gradual reduction in the proportion of the phosphate and car¬ 
bonate of lead, with a corresponding increase of that of the galena 
in descending from level to level in the Wheatley Mine. This 
last fact, showing a progressive replacement of the more easify 
vaporized ores—condensable only in the upper cooler parts of the 
vein—by other ores requiring a higher heat to sublime them, gives 
you, as already intimated in a former statement, a right to antici¬ 
pate a somewhat farther augmentation in the quantity of galena 
as the mine descends. By indicating the energy of the igneous 
action which attended the injection of the metalliferous materials 
in the fissure, these more readily sublimated compounds are in 
themselves an assurance of the probable permanency and con¬ 
stancy in size, of the lode. That this vein is the product of true 
igneous or volcanic agency from a deep source within the earth, 
is not only clearly implied by all that has been here stated of its 
geological and mineralogical features, but is plainly demonstrated 
by the occurrence of pure volcanic or crystalline sulphur in the 
cavities of the less compact masses of the galena or sulphuret of 
lead. Were a conclusive proof of an igneous origin really needed, 
it would be furnished, I conceive, by this interesting fact. Other 
and equally striking evidences of the force with which the vein 
was injected will present themselves in the cross courses of trap- 
rock, intersected and displaced by the lode. To the description 
of these, I now proceed. 

TRAP DYKES OF THE WHEATLEY LODE. 

Throughout this mineral district, and, indeed, extensively over 
all this part of Pennsylvania, the strata are intersected by dykes 
or injections of all dimensions, chiefly narrow ones, of a fine¬ 
grained bluish trap-rock. These seem to observe one prevailing 
course, at least, a general E. and W. direction of the principal 
ones has been detected by me. They traverse the oldest strata of 
the region, the gneiss, and the ancient palaeozoic limestone of the 
Chester County Valley, and equally the newest formation in the 
district, the middle secondary or red shale and sandstone. It is 


38 


thus manifest, that some, at least, of these igneous injections are 
of a date subsequent to the deposition of the red sandstone, and 
it is highly probable that even many of those included within 
this tract of the oldest rocks, are of the same relatively recent 
age; yet we have in the Wheatley and Brookdale Lode, which 
cuts no less than three of these small dykes of trap-rock, the in¬ 
teresting proofs that this lead-bearing vein, and, by analogy, the 
other metalliferous lodes, are of a date of origin even somewhat 
more modern. These would appear to be, in fact, the newest of 
the igneous injections of any sort encountered in all this Atlantic 
portion of the continent. Their precise geological age is not sus¬ 
ceptible of any closer limitation than a date subsequent to that 
of the formation of the red sandstone, and prior to that of the 
cretaceous deposits which, in New Jersey, overlap this red sand¬ 
stone and its trap dykes unconformably, and which, from their 
embracing no mineral veins whatever, have very evidently been 
laid down after these I have now described were injected. They 
may possibly belong either to the epoch of disturbance which 
attended the elevation and close of the oolitic coal deposit of 
Virginia and North Carolina, or that other period, of a far greater 
and wider movement, which shifted the shores and interior basin 
of the continent, immediately before the vast cretaceous formation 
commenced its long term of sedimentary accumulation* 

THE TRAP DYKES IN THE WHEATLEY LODE. 

Dyke No. 1. From the engine-shaft cross-cut, south-west in the 
10-fathom level 399 feet, there is a trap dyke (No. 1) ending 
against the lode on its north-west side or foot wall; it is about 3 J 
feet thick, its course is east and west, and it dips north about 18 
inches per fathom. Between this northern part of the dyke and 
its southern half, which abuts in like manner against the south¬ 
east side or hanging wall, there is a space of 56 feet; this has the 
Same course, but its dip north is not more than 12 or 15 inches 
per fathom. 

Dyke No. 2. There is another smaller dyke composed of close- 
grained trap; it also abuts against the lode on its north-west side 


39 


about 93 feet from the south-west half of dyke No. 1, or 555 feet 
from the engine-shaft crosscut. This dyke is about one foot 
thick; its course is about N. 70° W., and it dips almost perpen¬ 
dicularly. The other part of this dyke meets the lode on its 
south-east or opposite side, at a distance of 18 feet, presenting the 
same nearly vertical dip, and holding about the same thickness 
as its counterpart. 

Dyke No. 3. Another dyke, three feet or more in thickness, 
occurs at a distance of thirty feet from the south-eastern half of 
dyke No. 2. As this lode has not yet been driven on this level 
beyond the dyke, or even entirely through it, it is not possible to 
state definitely its dimensions, or even its course and dip, though 
the latter appears to be north, like the other two dykes above de¬ 
scribed. It would seem to be heaved, but to what extent remains 
to be seen hereafter. 

Adverting to the very different distances to which the two dykes, 
Nos. 1 and 2, are heaved in this level, viz.: 56 feet and 18 feet, 
respectively, it is obvious that the displacement of these divided 
portions cannot be the result, of an exclusively horizontal move¬ 
ment of the walls or cheeks of the fissure filled by the lode, 
but must be due in part, at least, to a vertical dislocation or 
shifting. The conditions of the case seem plainly to indicate that 
the throw of the north-west side of the fissure has been upward 
and forward towards the north-east, or that of the south-east side 
downward and backward towards the south-west. The exact di¬ 
rection and amount of this oblique displacement of the walls of 
the lode cannot be computed from the limited data at present 
furnished by the mine; it seems, however, to have amounted to 
at least some three fathoms in a horizontal direction, and to not 
less than 12 or 15 fathoms in a vertical one. So heavy a disloca¬ 
tion or throw, when viewed in connection with the great length 
of the vein, is certainly a very encouraging feature, for it is plain 
that a crack, whose sides have been so much displaced, cannot 
pinch itself to very small dimensions, but must remain the same 
open well-defined fissure which we see it in the mine for a great 
depth beneath the present workings. Thus, the trap dykes, or 


40 


cross courses, by disclosing to us an extensive displacement of the 
cheeks of the vein, confirm in an interesting manner the inferences 
already derivable from the lode itself, that, compared with the 
others of its district, it is an injection of mineral matter of more 
than ordinary regularity, extent and richness. 

PRESENT EXTENT AND CONDITION OF THE WHEATLEY MINE. 

The Adit Level. —The adit or water level lies at an average 
depth beneath the surface of about eight fathoms; its total length 
is 1,279 feet; of this space, 410 feet are through red shale from 
the adit mouth to the lode. From this oblique cross-cut it is 540 
feet along the lode to the short cross-cut at the engine-shaft. 
Thence to the western whim shaft, it is 194 feet, and beyond this, 
the adit extends 135 feet farther. 

The 10 Fathom Level. —This level has a total length at the pre¬ 
sent date, (May 1, 1853,) of 935 feet from the end of the engine- 
shaft cross-cut to its present south-western terminus; it has now 
been driven 604 feet, and from the same point to its north-eastern 
end it is 331 feet long. It extends, therefore, about 275 feet past 
the south-western end of the adit level. 

The 20 Fathom Level. —Up to the same date, the 1st of May, this 
level has been driven south-westward from the engine-shaft cross¬ 
cut, 465 feet, and north-eastward from the same point about 95 
feet—being a total length of 560 feet. 

Of the Shafts and Winzes. —There are five external shafts and 
six shorter interior ones—called winzes, by miners—connecting 
the different levels. 

The Engine Shaft. —The main shaft of the mine, by which all 
the water is lifted, and a portion of the ore also, has a present 
depth of 217 feet ;* it is perpendicular, and enters the gneiss rocks, 
at a point 122 feet south-east from the lode at the surface. At the 
adit level, its distance from the lode, in consequence of this being 
nearly perpendicular in its upper portion, is still 120 feet; opposite 
the ten-fathom level its distance is 103 feet, and at the twenty - 


* Now about 234 feet. 





41 


fathom level the space is seventy-six feet. On the assumption 
that the present very regular rate of dip of the lode will con¬ 
tinue, the shaft will be off from the thirty-fathom level—not }^et 
quite reached—about fifty-one feet, and twenty-six feet from the 
forty-fathom, and only one foot from the fifty-fathom level, a little 
beneath which it will enter the lode. This shaft is in regular 
dipping gneissic strata, penetrated here and there with injections of 
granite and sienite. 

The South-western Whim Shaft , 194 feet south-west from engine- 
shaft, descends in the lode, and has a depth of 174 feet. 

The North-eastern Whim Shaft , 311 feet from the engine-shaft, 
is not in the lode but in the gneiss rocks, and is so placed that it 
will cut the lode at the twenty-fathom level. Its present depth 
is about 100 feet. 

The Two Adit Shafts meet the lode at the adit level, and are 
only for ventilation ; they both are to the north-east of the engine- 
shaft ; the first at 201 feet from it, with a depth of fifty-seven 
feet; the second at 530 feet from it, having a depth of forty feet. 

Of the Winzes within the mine there are two, which descend 
from the adit level to the ten-fathom level, one of them situated 
to the north-east of the engine-shaft cross-cut, and the other to the 
south-west of it. 

The other four descend from the ten-fatliom level to the twenty- 
fathom level; and of these, one is north-east of the engine-shaft 
cross-cut; one lies between this cross-cut and the western whim 
shaft, while the remaining two are to the south-west of this whim 
shaft. 

Note .—At date of printing, August 1, the ten-fathom level has been extended 
seventy-two feet, and the twenty-fathom level 168 feet. 

PRODUCT OF THE MINE IN ORE. 

I will now present some notes of the past productiveness of the 
mine, with my views of its prospective yield. 

Good ore has been extracted in stopings even between the 
surface and the adit level; for example, near the engine-shaft 
cross-cut, for a length of about forty feet. In the next lift, or 
6 


42 


between the aclit level and the ten-fathom level, the mine has 
yielded good ore in three several stopings: one, north-east of the 
engine cross-cut, forty feet long and thirty feet high; another, just 
south-west of the cross-cut, eighty feet long and nearly up to the 
adit level, or about fifty-five feet high; while the third or largest 
was both north-east and south-west of the western whim shaft, and 
had a length of 214 feet, and an average height of some thirty- 
six feet. 

In addition to this portion already taken out, I would observe 
that there is a mass of ore still above the ten-fathom level, at its 
extreme western end, some thirty-five feet in length. 

Between the ten-fathom and the twenty-fathom levels, there 
has been very little ore removed as yet, the chief piece of stoping 
being a little south-west of the engine-shaft cross-cut. Another 
mass, about fifty feet long and only nine feet high, has been 
taken chiefly from the south-west of the whim shaft; and there 
is yet a third stoping, on the main lode at the south-western end 
of the twenty-fathom level, forty-five feet in length, but carried 
up, at present, no more than some twelve feet on an average. 

In the portions of the main lode which seem to promise a 
profitable future yield, there remains some ore above a long 
stoping near the western whim shaft above the ten-fathom level. 
The ground south-west of this old stoping is dead, and beyond 
it we find thirty-six feet of good stoping ground to the present 
end of the level. 

From the twenty-fathom level on the north-eastern end, north¬ 
east of the engine-shaft, occurs a piece of good ground, almost 
forty feet long, near the winze south-west of the engine-shaft 
cross-cut; this first piece is sixtv-six feet Ions; between the cross- 
cut and winze. A second piece, beginning fifty feet north-east 
of whim shaft, and extending for some 250 feet to the present 
end of this level, though in places quite lean, will pay well for 
stoping. At the south-western end of the workings, the lode 
appears of average richness. On the ten-fathom level there is a 
cross trap dyke three or four feet thick, and beyond this the vein 
is resumed, but is at present thin, being only just at the dyke. 


43 


The twenty-fathom level is not as far forward within 150 feet. 
It ends in a very fair lode, and has very recently increased botli 
in size and richness, the ore part estimated to be two feet thick, 
and to yield three tons of ore per fathom. 

BRANCHES FROM THE MAIN LODE IN THE WHEATLEY MINE. 

An interesting and encouraging feature in this vein, betraying 
the energy and extent of the rupturing and injecting force, is the 
presence of several branch lodes which fork off at an acute angle 
from the main mass, and. for the most part, re-enter it again at a 
similar obliquity, insulating at the same level, at least, a thicker 
or thinner mass of the adjoining rock. These inclosed “horses,” 
as the miners call them, are sometimes entirely insulated in cer¬ 
tain mines, sometimes only partially so. In the Wheatley Lode, 
the principal one points off to nothing upward, and feathers off in 
both directions horizontally, by the branch veins running into 
the main lode upwards as well as horizontally; but whether it is 
thus surrounded in the downward direction cannot be known, 
since it is growing progressively thicker from level to level de¬ 
scending That this branch lode will eventually inclose the 
horse in the downward direction, seems altogether probable, from 
its appearing to be so essentially a true branch shot upwards and 
laterally from the main injection of ore. 

The branch veins, as now developed, are:— 

First. A branch vein or offset from the main lode, which 
turns out and re-enters it, insulating a horse. This branch at the 
ten-fathom level is eighty feet between its two junctions with the 
main lode, and at this level it recedes nine feet at the thickest 
part of the horse. The horse contains strings of phosphate and 
carbonate of lead. This branch joins the main lode about twenty 
feet above, back of the ten-fathom level. It dips steeper than the 
main lode, underlying not more than six inches in a fathom, for at 
sixteen feet below the ten-fathom level the cross-cut to it is twelve 
feet long, and it will be twenty feet at the twenty-fathom level. 

This branch yields good ore throughout it, chiefly galena; its 
average thickness is about nine inches, and it is richest where the 
horse is widest, and thins at its junction with the main lode. 


Opposite this branch, the main lode contains galena and phos¬ 
phate of lead as on the ten-fathom level, quite good ore, say about 
eighteen inches in thickness. 

There is another branch also on the north-west or underlying 
side of the lode, visible in the ten-fathom level, but opened and 
mined from the twenty-fathom level. It has been mined sixty 
feet from the south-west point of the horse north-eastward to 
where the workings now are; but it has not been worked round 
into the lode. 

This branch, like the other, is nearly perpendicular, underlying 
not more than nine inches per fathom. The horse at the thickest 
is about twelve feet, and at the present end of the workings, five 
feet thick, the branch now approaching the main lode. 

The horse is streaked with thin veins, and has chunks and 
strings of galena, carbonate of lead, &o. There are symptoms of 
other branches or turn-outs of the vein, some of them on its south¬ 
eastern side ; but these two, here mentioned, are the only ones 
now working. 

These branches, it will be seen, promise to contribute quite a 
considerable auxiliary amount of ore to that derived from the 
main lode, and they deserve to be very carefully sought and 
pursued. 

Estimates .—In attempting to estimate, from the present aspect 
of the mine, the probable future average yield of this already 
quite extensively developed mineral vein, several contingencies 
must be allowed for, the value of some of which it is impossible, 
in this early state of the explorations on the vein, very accurately 
to calculate. Thus, an abatement from any measurement of the 
quantity of the ore based on the mere dimensions of the lode it¬ 
self, is demanded for those spaces which are too lean in good ore 
to pay for the expenses of stoping them, or mining out the ma¬ 
terial ; but the proportion of dead ground to be thus deducted, it 
is not easy yet precisely to determine ; I deem it a very ample 
and safe allowance to throw off one-lialf the area of the vein in 
length and depth as too poor for working. On the other hand, a 
contingent allowance is to be made in the other direction from the 


45 


additions to the product of the mine, from the branches, all of 
which are probably not yet discovered, and the full resources of 
which I am satisfied are not yet known. 

Of the other, or productive half, a careful study of the Wheatley 
Mine induces me to believe that the average yield in good ore, 
calculated to the square fathom, is from one and a quarter to one 
and a half tons. 

It is in the power of any person, from these data, and from the 
other elements of length and depth already presented, to estimate 
for himself, on the reasonable assumption of a permanency in the 
averages I have ventured .to give, the total future yield of the 
whole lode, embraced between the limits within which it has been 
opened and is now being wrought in the Wheatley and Brookdale 
Mines. 

In support of the general accuracy of my estimate of February, 
1852 , of the quantity and aggregate value of the ore then accessi¬ 
ble in the mine, I beg leave to mention, that I learn from the 
books of the Company, that the quantity of marketable ore actu¬ 
ally extracted from those workings and sold, proved to be almost 
exactly what I at that time computed it, as it lay unbroken in the 
mine. 

I cannot conclude this Report on the Wheatley and Brookdale 
Lode, and the two mines now independently wrought in it, with¬ 
out expressing, in distinct terms, my conviction, that the whole 
vein, as far as opened, holds out good promises of permanency and 
richness, or, in other words, of fair remunerative profit, if efficiently 
and frugally wrought. But to work it to the best efficiency, 
which in mining is the only true economy, it will be indispensable, 
I conceive, to drain the lode of the chief part of its water by a 
powerful pumping-engine and central shaft, stationed at some point 
between the present Wheatley and Brookdale engine-shafts, com¬ 
petent to relieve both of these mines of their main influx of water, 
and to lay the vein accessible through a greater length and depth 
than can possibly be commanded by the existing comparatively 
feeble engines. All mining example dictates the wisdom and 
economy of draining and working such a lode by amply powerful 


46 


machinery, planted at a central shaft. In no other way, in fact 
can the burden of the drainage of the mines be equitably dis¬ 
tributed, or the truest economy in their working and administra¬ 
tion be at all secured. But to gain admission by this, the most 
efficient and cheapest mode, to the full riches of the vein, it ap¬ 
pears desirable, I would respectfully suggest, that there should 
arise a union of the interests of the Wheatley and the Brookdale 
Companies ; for it will be most difficult to adjust the proportions 
in which, as two independent proprietors, the respective companies 
can contribute to the erection and maintenance of the central 
machinery, shaft and workings. 

All the elements, the drainage particularly, are too indetermin¬ 
ate and^too fluctuating to admit of any permanent and equitable 
system of reciprocal assessment of this burden. The wealth of 
the vein seems strongly to justify an increased expenditure of 
capital; yet this expenditure, to be fully successful, implies, as a 
requisite condition, a closer fusion of the interests of the two com¬ 
panies now working its two extremities, which, though united by 
the most intimate physical ties and mechanical necessities, are di¬ 
vided by the accidents of ownership. 

THE PRESENT EXTENT AND PROSPECTS OF THE BROOKDALE 

MINE. 

The Brookdale Lode, or, more strictly, the Brookdale end of 
the Wheatley Lode—for every indication implies that the two 
mines are situated on one and the same metalliferous vein—has 
been already sufficiently described in referring to the features of 
the whole under the name of the Wheatley Lode. There would 
seem to be very little room to doubt that this assumed continuity 
of the vein really exists; for though both the Wheatley and 
Brookdale portions deviate, in certain sections of their length, con¬ 
siderably from the direction of the line joining the most distant 
shafts, yet the vein appears to return again to this general average 
course, the departures being neither very wide nor long. The 
same undulation in its course is noticeable at the Brookdale end, 
which we witness in the Wheatley portion. Though the actual 


distance on the lode between the south-western end of the present 
workings in the Wheatley Mine, and the nearest positively proved 
point in the Brookdale Mine, is about 1,308 feet, yet the coinci¬ 
dence in direction in the surface vein-stones, and in the ores,' and 
all their accompaniments, is so striking as to convince every atten¬ 
tive observer that the two mines are seated upon one and the same 
lode. Referring to the general statements given in the preceding 
sketch of the geological and mineral features of this vein, and of 
its relations to the other veins of the district, I proceed to offer a 
few notes and observations respecting the newly commenced 
Brookdale Mine. 

The length of lode opened by the adit level is about 456 feet, 
but there are decided indications on the surface along the course 
of it, for even a few hundred feet beyond the point at which the 
adit at present terminates, that the vein still continues. The lode 
through much of the Brookdale ground or sett, out-crops near the 
bed of the little transverse valley which descends northward from 
a range of higher land ; as a consequence, the adit level is not 
deep beneath the surface, being nowhere lower than six fathoms, 
and, on an average, only four fathoms. 

In this adit level, the lode is stained with spots of carbonate and 
phosphate of lead, and with galena for a length of about 400 feet 
or within some sixty feet of the end of the level. The gossans, 
vein-stones and ores of the Brookdale Mine are identical with 
those of the Wheatley, and it exhibits in its hanging wall pre- 
ciselv the same variety of soft white felspar and quartzose granite 
which distinguished the same wall of the latter, and which I have 
so very often noticed to be the accompaniment of our richest me¬ 
talliferous veins. 

Above this adit, several tons of marketable ore were procured 
at no greater depth than some twenty feet; and below this level, 
the vein steadily improves in richness in the shaft. The engine- 
shaft is now (May 1, 1853), down just seventy-five feet, and is ad¬ 
vancing at a good speed. At fifteen fathoms depth another level 
will be driven ; and this will, therefore, be commenced very soon. 

On the whole, the indications of a productive vein in the lower 


48 


levels of this mine seem as encouraging as those in the Wheatley 
Mine; but to open the lode satisfactorily, a powerful pumping- 
engine is indispensable. The position of the vein so near the bed 
of a ravine, will render this mine a somewhat wet one ; and 
although the present excellent engine of sixty-horse power will be 
competent to the drainage of the first upper levels, it can never 
grapple with the burden to be lifted, when, after two or three 
years, the workings grow deep and extensive. 

I would, therefore, renew in this place the suggestion made in 
my Report on the Wheatley Mine, that the Brookdale and Wheat- 
ley Mining Companies should unite their resources for the con¬ 
struction of a deep central shaft, somewhere in the middle ground 
between the two present mines, and for the erection of capable 
machinery, strong enough to develop, and drain, and work the lode, 
in levels not to be reached by the present engines. 

Yours, very respectfully, 

HENRY E>. ROGERS. 

In his final report on u The Geology of Pennsylvania, a 
Government Survey,” Prof. Rogers reproduces the last of the 
foregoing reports in full, (p. 669—706, Yol. II., Part 2,) without 
addition. In that elaborate quarto it is accompanied by a map 
of the mining district of Chester and Montgomery Counties, on 
which all the veins of that interesting district are carefully laid 
down. The scientific reader will consult that map with advantage, 
as showing, in a most clear and satisfactoiy manner, the line of 
contact of the sandstone and gneiss along which the mineral 
veins intersect. 


REPORT OF PROFESSOR B. SILLIMAN, Jr., 

$ 

IX THE 

“WORLD OF SCIENCE, ART AND INDUSTRY ILLUSTRATED.” 

In an article published in the Record of the New-York Exhibi¬ 
tion, Prof. Silliman speaks as follows of this property, (p. 57 :) 
“The mineral region where the Wheatley Mines are situated 



49 


is in Montgomery and Chester Counties, and occupies a belt of 
country from six to seven miles long, ranging across the Schuyl¬ 
kill River, near the Perkiomen and Pickering Creeks, in a 
general east and west direction, and along the boundary of the 
so-called primary and secondary rocks. The existence of some 
of the metallic veins of this region has been long known, but it 
is only lately that a systematic exploration of their contents has 
been undertaken by Mr. Charles M. Wheatley. Under his judi¬ 
cious management, the chief lode of argentiferous galena has 
been proved to a depth of over two hundred feet, and a monthly 
return of about one hundred tons of silver-lead ore obtained. 
The mineralogist, and the lover of beautiful natural objects, will 
see with equal pleasure and surprise the superb crystallization of 
metallic salts from these mines, now exhibited in the mineralogi- 
cal department. They embrace the carbonate of lead, sulphate 
of lead (anglesite of the mineralogists) phosphates of lead, green, 
brown and yellow ; molybdate and molybdo-chromate of lead, 
splendid red crystals; arseniate of lead, chromate of lead, galena, 
bars of silver obtained from the galena, and various other pro¬ 
ducts less attractive to the uninstructed eye. We speak under¬ 
standing^ and without exaggeration, when we say that the sul¬ 
phates and molybdo-chromates of lead, in Mr. Wheatley’s collec¬ 
tion, are the most magnificent metallic salts ever obtained in lead 
mining, and unequalled by anything we have seen in the cabinets 
of Europe. These attractive crystallizations possess, however, 
far more interest for the chemist and mineralogist than for the 
economist, who will see more hope of future returns to shareholders 
in the lumps of solid galena and the bars of white silver than 
in the brilliant facets of the gems before named. 

“The inexperienced in such matters will learn with interest, 
however, that these flowers of the earth’s dark recesses have 
a high economical value as indicating the existence of solid and 
enduring mineral wealth below. In the chemical and geological 
antagonism, whose energies sent up to the surface the mineral 
veins from the deep interior, the more volatile and easily exhaled 
compounds have sought the upper surface. The air and the 
7 


50 


atmospheric waters also have penetrated to a certain depth, in the 
course of the veins, producing changes in their contents, the most 
remarkable of which is the washing out and removal, for the most 
part, of the metallic substances. These veins, therefore, near the 
upper surface, present only a dull mass of cellular quartz, whose 
cavities are filled with yellow ochre or dull black powders of the 
oxyds of iron and manganese, with here and there, perhaps, a 
metallic spangle or stain. The eye of the experienced miner 
rests with delight on these ugly gozzans , as he calls them, in the 
provincial dialect of Cornwall—for he is sure of success in depth 
where the surface offers such promise. Succeeding these dull 
and unattractive signs, of which Mr. Wheatley’s collection pre¬ 
sents specimens, are found the elegant salts before mentioned, but 
lower down, at the depth of some hundreds of feet, heavy masses 
of galena and of other sulphur compounds of the metals fill the 
rich portions of the vein, and offer the safest assurance of con¬ 
tinued wealth. 

“ The geology of this metalliferous district of Pennsylvania has 
been studied lately by Prof. H. D. Rogers, who has made a special 
report to the proprietors upon it. From this report and our per¬ 
sonal knowledge of the district, we have drawn what has been 
said. The elaborate maps of the region, constructed upon the 
plan of the Ordnance Survey maps of Great Britain, will be observed 
suspended in the exhibition, and upon them the metallic veins are 
traced in gold. We are happy to have it in our power to call 
public attention to this subject by so good an example of patient 
and skilful development at our own door.” 

“As already remarked, the more easily volatilized of the lead 
ores, and those resulting as secondary products from the decom¬ 
position of galena by atmospheric causes, occupy the upper and 
less productive portions of the veins. It is remarkable that 
among these the phosphate of lead should occupy so prominent 
a place, forming not less than three-fourths of the whole metallic 
product of the upper levels. Ii is a curious subject of scientific 
inquiry, from whence came such enormous quantities of phos¬ 
phoric acid? But a question of much more practical and 


51 


economical interest is, 1 Cannot the process of smelting these 
ores be so modified that the phosphoric acid may be secured in a 
form of combination fit for the purposes of the agriculturist?’ 
The whole world has been searched during the past ten years for 
new sources of supply for this indispensable ingredient of all 
fertile soils. Is it not possible that this may be a new source, or 
one hitherto overlooked ? 

“ It is proper to advert, before closing this article, to a few facts 
upon the general geology of this district, and of its metallic 
deposits, which are of equal practical and scientific interest. We 
will endeavor to make these statements as simple and untechnical 
as possible. In the previous part of this article it was stated that 
the mineral veins of this district passed uninterruptedly out of 
the gneissic strata (rocks belonging to the granitic family) into 
the red sandstone adjacent. Now, it is a curious fact, worthy of 
much attention, that the metalliferous veins, so long as they 
remain in the gneissic rocks, are lead-bearing veins; that as soon 
as these same veins pass the boundary of the primary, and enter 
the red shales, the character of their metallic contents is changed, 
and they become copper-bearing lodes. This general statement is 
subject to some exceptions, but it is, at the same time, supported 
by so many remarkable confirmatory instances, that there can be 
little hesitation in accepting it as the law of the district. 

“ The question of the geological age of metallic deposits has 
always been considered one of the greatest practical and scientific 
importance. The Perkiomen district furnishes us some facts of 
singular interest bearing upon this question. The red sandstone 
deposits, into which the metallic veins have been intruded from 
the underlying primary rocks, belong to the period known to 
European geologists as the triassic, but more familiar at the new 
red sandstone, a deposit more recent than the coal measures. 
Now, it happens that this quarter of Pennsylvania is intersected 
by numerous veins of igneous origin, familiarly known by the 
name of trap-dykes; it is obvious, on reflection, that inasmuch as 
these trap-dykes intersect alike the primary and secondary rocks, 
that the fissures which they fill must have been formed subse¬ 
quent to the laying down of the sedimentary strata; in other 


52 


words, the intrusive rocks are more recent in their geological age 
than the new red sandstone. The bearing of these facts upon the 
subject under consideration will be understood, when it is known 
that in the exploration of the Wheatley Lode three of these trap- 
dykes have been discovered intersected and displaced by the 
metallic vein. Moreover, such was the force producing the 
fissures now filled by the metallic lode, that the corresponding or 
opposite parts of the two walls have been heaved or displaced 
horizontally, in one instance more than fifty-six feet out of their 
original position. 

“ These facts show not only that these metallic veins are more 
recent in their origin than the sedimentary deposits through which 
they are injected, but also more recent than the system of intru¬ 
sive rocks. The same system of new red sandstone rocks, accom¬ 
panied by the intrusive trap-dykes, is common also in the valley 
of the Connecticut, and in the State of New-Jersey. In both of 
these places indications of copper exist along the lines of junction 
of the several members of the system, but they nowhere show a 
disposition to form well-defined courses of a metallic character. 

“ It is the opinion of Prof. Rogers that the metallic vein fissures 
of this region were formed and filled during the long period when 
the eastern slope of the Alleghanies was still beneath the ocean, 
from whose waters were deposited the extensive belt of tertiary 
and cretaceous strata bordering the Atlantic border of North 
America. The effect of the oceanic overflow appears in the very 
extensive and deeply penetrating decomposition which the gneis- 
sic strata of this region have suffered, yielding to the landscape 
those soft and beautiful swells and outlines for which this fine 
agricultural district is remarkable.” 


Award, by Professors Dana and Hall, of the Silver 
Medal for the Exhibition of the Products of the 
Wheatley Mines, in 1853. 

The report of the jury on Class L, (:mineral and mining products ,) 
at the New-York Exhibition of 1853, was drawn up by Professor 



53 


James D. Dana and Professor James Hall. The following is 

an extract from this jury report, making the award of the silver 
medal. 

“ The value and importance of the objects exhibited from the 
Wheatley Mines, the superior excellence of the specimens and 
prepared materials, the fullness and exactness of the plans of the 
mining operations, drawings of the machinery, etc., together with 
the fact that this exhibition is the result of mining operations, due 
entirely to the labor and skill of the exhibitor, and constitutes a 
positive addition to our previous knowledge of the resources of 
the country, claim from the jury the highest award, viz., the 
Silver Medal.” 



OPINION OF J. D. WHITNEY, Esq., GEOLOGIST OF 

CALIFORNIA. 

In his Metallic Wealth of the United Stales , Mr. Whitney speaks 
as follows (p. 328) of the region where these mines are situated. 

“There is in Montgomery and Chester Counties, in Pennsyl¬ 
vania, a metalliferous district of peculiar interest, which is now 
developing to a considerable extent, and which has been 
favorably reported on by those mining engineers and geologists 
who have examined it. According to H. D. Rogers, State Geolo¬ 
gist, who made this region the subject of a special report, the me¬ 
talliferous zone ranges in a general east and west direction across 
the Schuylkill River, occupying a belt of country six to seven 
miles long, in the vicinity of Perkiomen and Pickering Creeks, 
not far from the boundary of the gneiss, or metamorphic rocks, 
and the new red sand-stone. Within this space are some ten or 
twelve lodes, some of which are said to be confined to one forma¬ 
tion and some to the other, while others traverse both. Prof? 
Rogers states that, as a general fact, those veins which are confined 
entirely or chiefly to the gneiss, bear lead as their principal metal,' 
whereas those which are included solely within the red shale are 
characterized by containing ores of copper.” 



54 


On page 396, Prof. Whitney speaks thus of the 

LEAD MINES IN PENNSYLVANIA.. 

“ These mines are situated pear the junction of the new red sand¬ 
stone and the gneiss, or metamorphic palaeozoic ; as has already 
been mentioned, the cupriferous veins of the district are chiefly 
confined to the sand-stone and shale, and bear those ores in that 
formation, while the lead-bearing lodes, although in some instances 
entering the sand-stone, are best developed in the gneiss, and are 
there almost solely worked. 

“ Pour lodes carrying principally lead ore, are mentioned by Prof. 
Rogers as more or less explored, and there are several others less 
known. These are the Wheatley and Brookdale, the Chester 
County, the Montgomery, and the Charlestown lodes. The two 
first-mentioned do, however, bear lead in the shale which forms 
only a superficial cap of inconsiderable thickness upon the meta¬ 
morphic strata below. The gneiss is described as being decom¬ 
posed down to a very considerable depth, so that the shallow 
excavations in the mines are made with great facility. It is inter¬ 
sected by numerous dykes of granite, green stone-trap and other 
igneous rocks, which sometimes cut the strata vertically, and 
sometimes are parallel with the planes of the enclosing rock. 

“The greater number of the lodes of this district have a course 
of about north 32° east, and they dip to the south-east; another 
set, however, runs north 52° to 54° east; but there seems to be 
no marked distinction in the character of the two systems, if such 
they may be called. 

“ The principal gangue of the veins is quartz, with some heavy 
spar. The ores found comprise almost every variety of lead-ore 
usually found on the backs of plumbiferons lodes when decom¬ 
posed, specimens of extraordinary beauty from this region were 
exhibited in Hew-York, at the Crystal Palace, among which sul¬ 
phate, carbonate, phosphate, molybdate and chromate of lead, 
were conspicuous for their beauty.” 


55 


Reprinted from the Mining Magazine and Journal of Geology, April to July , I860. 


REPORT ON THE WHEATLEY SILVER-LEAD MINES. 

By Wm. P. Blake, Esq., Editor of the Mining Magazine, 

The Wheatley Mines are justly celebrated among mineralogists 
as the source from which the principal mineralogical cabinets of 
the world have been enriched with the choicest and most beautiful 
crystallizations of the ores of lead, and other minerals. They are 
not less well known among the practical miners and metallurgists 
of the United States for their large production of silver-bearing 
lead, and the fair prospect they have given of a permanent yield 
of this valuable ore. 

Having recently visited these mines, some interesting facts re¬ 
garding their past and present condition were obtained and are 
here presented, together with some observations upon the ores and 
their distribution in the vein. As the mines are now full of water, 
the investigations were necessarily confined to the surface, and to 
the very full and instructive suites of minerals which have been 
reserved to illustrate and represent the mine. To Captain Cock¬ 
ing, who has been familiar with the mine from the first opening, 
and to Mr. Charles M. Wheatley, I am indebted for most of the 
facts here stated, which did not come under my own observation. 
The very complete and accurately drawn maps and sections of the 
mine were also of great service in forming a just view of the lode 
and its character. 

The Wheatley vein is one of a group of metal-bearing lodes ex¬ 
tending in nearly parallel lines in a general north-east and south¬ 
west direction through a portion of Montgomery and Chester Coun¬ 
ties, Pa. It is about twenty-seven miles from Philadelphia, and is 
near Phoenixville, on the Reading Railroad. At this place, the red 
sandstone strata of secondary age rest upon the upturned edges of 
gneissic rocks, and the ore-bearing vein occurs near the line of 
junction of the formations, and cuts both; the lower part of the 
vein being in gneiss, and a portion above in the red sandstone* 




56 


Professor Henry D. Rogers, the State Geologist of Pennsylvania, 
who has examined and ably described this vein, regards it as un¬ 
doubtedly injected, or a true fissure vein and as originating at, or 
after the close of the secondary period, perhaps at the time of the 
intrusion of the trap ranges which intercept the same strata in 
their range from the Hudson to the Potomac, and in the valley of 
the Connecticut. Although the trap and the vein may be contem¬ 
poraneous, there is no direct or established association, and the 
vein belongs to the gneissic rocks, rather than to the sandstones 
and shales of the secondary. 

CHARACTER OF THE VEIN AND EXTENT OF MINING. 

This vein was discovered and opened in the spring of 1851, by 
Mr. Charles M. Wheatley, and work was commenced with a small 
pumping engine. In September, 1854, the engine shaft had been 
sunk fifty fathoms from the surface, or 300 feet. An adit-level 
had also been driven on the course of the lode 1,325 feet, draining 
the shaft to a depth of sixty feet. The ten-fathom level was 
driven 1,250 feet; the thirty-fathom level 477 feet, and the 
forty-fathom level 107 feet. These, including the branches 
on the lode, made the whole number of feet driven at that time, 
over 4,000. These figures show substantially the present extent of 
the Wheatley Mine proper, for the work was suspended soon after 
that date, and has not since been resumed. The longitudinal sec¬ 
tion which is appended will show by a glance, the depth and ex¬ 
tent of the principal workings, and the amount of ground that has 
been stoped. This, however, is but a partial section, as the vein 
has been followed and worked upon at different points on either 
side of the main or engine shaft, and not represented in the sec¬ 
tion ; indeed, two mines, bearing distinct names—the Brookdale and 
the Phoenix Mine —have been opened and worked on the prolonga¬ 
tion of the same vein to the west, which has been traced, in all, 
over 3,000 feet. The relative positions of these mines upon the 
vein, and the extent of the workings at each, was shown in a Re¬ 
port and Statement published in 1855, from which it appears that 
the distance between the Wheatley and the Brookdale shafts is 


57 


2,076 feet, and between the Brookdale and the Phoenix, about 
1,380. 

At the Brookdale Mine, the engine shaft is 192 feet below the 
surface, and thirty-six feet below the twenty-six-fathom level. At 
the Phoenix, the engine shaft is sunk on the underlay of the vein 
ninety feet, and at the bottom a level has been driven about two 
hundred feet each way. It is thus seen that the greatest amount 
of work has been expended at the Wheatley Mine proper. 

The vein makes but little show upon the surface, and for the 
most part lies below cultivated soil. It is exposed in the bed of 
a little rivulet near the Brookdale Mine, and consists of a quartzose 
gangue, crystalline and cavernous, which, on being broken out, is 
found to contain masses of galena. The character of this out-crop 
clearly indicates that it is a fissure vein, and not of segregation or 
contact merely, and these indications are sustained by the character 
of the vein and walls below. The width varies from one to two 
and three feet; at one point it was four feet wide, and three feet 
of it was solid galena. This rich mass of ore extended, with a 
decreasing thickness from the twenty-fathom to the thirty-fathom 
level and below, where the whole vein was about two feet thick. 
In the Brookdale Mine, the vein left standing in the west end of 
the fourteen-fathom level, was two and a half feet thick, and com¬ 
posed chiefly of quartz and gossan. 

The dip of the lode is about twenty inches in a fathom, or about 
seventy-five degrees, and is towards the south. The engine shaft 
is sunk vertically, so as to intersect the vein near the fifty-fathom 
level, between which and the surface the lode is reached by cross¬ 
cuts, at intervals of ten fathoms, or about sixty feet. 

The main lode has several branches which yield good ore. They 
are found to diverge from the main vein, and either thin out in 
the wall-rock or again enter the vein beyond. In this case a por¬ 
tion of the wall-rock may be said to be enclosed in the vein, form¬ 
ing what is called a horse, among miners. Such parts of the wall- 
rock, or the horses in this mine, are generally traversed by small 
veins or strings of ore. A branch at the bottom of the thirty- 
8 


58 


fathom level, where the ore is ten inches thick, remains nnworked. 
The main vein opposite is about two feet thick. 

THE ORE AND MINERALS. 

The chief ore-product of this vein is an argentiferous galena, 
which is accompanied by an abundance of phosphate of lead— 
pyromorphite—also argentiferous. 

It has been observed by Mr. Wheatley and Captain Cocking, 
and is noted by Professor Eogers, that where the vein is confined 
to the gneiss, the ores of lead predominate ; but when in the sand¬ 
stone or red shales, the ores of copper are most abundant. Zinc 
blende is a large constituent of the vein in both formations. 

In 1851, eleven tons of ore were raised, but at the time of 
suspension of mining in 1854, the whole production had reached 
1,800 tons, 1,000 tons of which, averaging 60 per cent, of lead, 
had been raised during the last year. The galena ores yield from 
seventy to eighty per cent, of lead, and from fifteen to 120 ounces 
of silver to the ton, or from twenty-sis to thirty ounces on an 
average. The phosphate ore yields about five ounces of silver to 
the ton, and the gossans on the back of the lode are also found to 
contain a notable portion of silver. 

The galena occurs chiefly upon the hanging wall, and is both 
crystalline and massive, often with a fibrous or veined structure 
and fine grain. The phosphate presents almost all shades of green, 
from yellowish green to a dark olive green, and is commonly well 
crystallized in hexagonal prisms, sometimes closely aggregated in 
large heavy bunches, and again spread in distinct crystals over 
broad surfaces of quartz or gossan. It has lately been found in 
stalactitic crusts enveloping large crystals of galena, which are 
much corroded below the crust, as if dissolved or eaten away by 
acids, while the crusts of phosphate appear to have been derived 
from the decomposition. It is most probable that the pyromor¬ 
phite is a secondary ore formed by the change in the ore in the 
upper portions of the lode, to which atmospheric influences pene¬ 
trate ; yet it is difficult to account for the source of such a large 
quantity of phosphoric acid, when it has not been recognized in 


59 


the minerals of the unchanged deeper parts of the vein. It is 
found also that the phosphate is most abundant near the surface, 
where the galena is nearly replaced by it and other salts of lead. 
It exists in small quantity as low as thirty-eight fathoms below the 
surface, but below this the minerals are chiefly galena, blende, copper 
and iron pyrites, calcite, carbonate of lime, fluor spar, and quartz. 

At this time a considerable quantity of phosphate ore is being 
taken from the back of the vein near the surface. Over six tons 
of this ore, washed and dressed to about sixty per cent, of lead, 
and worth about forty dollars a ton, were shipped during my visit. 

The crystals of sulphate of lead— anglesite —from this mine are 
finer than from any other known locality, and are deservedly held 
in the highest esteem by mineralogists for cabinet specimens. 
The finest crystals are colorless and transparent, like rock crystal, 
and have very perfect and brilliantly polished planes. These are 
commonly found in cavities or nest-like spaces in the galena, and 
appear to great advantage in contrast with the dark and ochre- 
lined walls. One of the crystals found in this mine was five and 
a half inches long, and an inch and a half thick, with perfect termi¬ 
nations. They are most abundant in the deeper parts of the mine. 

Carbonate of lead, or cerusite , also occurs in beautiful crystalliza¬ 
tions, in cavities, like the sulphate, but chiefly in the more porous 
and friable portions of the ore or gossan. They are also found 
coating galena and other minerals of the vein. 

Molybdate of lead— wulfenite —is another very interesting spe¬ 
cies, which is found chiefly in the ore from whim shaft No. 2. 
It is in small bright red and yellow crystals, frequently disposed 
upon broad surfaces of green phosphate. When this mineral was 
first detected in 1851, only two or three very minute red crystals 
were obtained, and were mistaken for chromate of lead, which 
they much resembled. Dr. Wetherill, of Philadelphia, examined 
the mineral after it was obtained in greater abundance, and did 
not find any chromic acid. Dr. J. Lawrence Smith, in his inter¬ 
esting and very full descriptions of the minerals of this mine,* 
refers the red color to the presence of vanadic acid. 


* American Journal of Science [2], xx, 246* 



60 


The most interesting mineral species hitherto obtained from the 
vein are enumerated in the following list: 

Galena, blende, iron and copper pyrites, native silver, pyro- 
morphite, anglesite, cerusite, wulfenite, vanadate of lead, mime- 
tene, calamine, malachite, azurite, fluor spar, calc spar, heavy spar, 
sulphur, brown hematite, dolomite, and quartz crystals. 

A very fine series of these minerals, together with suites of the 
ore as they come from the mines, and as dressed for market, were 
sent to the Mineralogical Department of the New-York Crystal 
Palace Exhibition, and attracted much attention from scientific 
and practical men. Professor B. Silliman, Jr., in his report upon 
this department of the Exhibition, observes: “We speak under- 
standingly, and without exaggeration, when we say that the 
sulphate and molybdo-chromates of lead in Mr. Wheatley’s col¬ 
lection are the most magnificent metallic salts ever obtained in 
lead mining, and unequaled by anything we have seen in the 
cabinets of Europe.” The report of the Jury of Class 1 says: 
“The value and importance of the objects exhibited from the 
Wheatley Mines, the superior excellence of the specimens and 
prepared materials, the fullness and exactness of the plans of the 
mining operations, drawings of machinery, &c., together with the 
fact that this exhibition is the result of mining operations, due 
entirely to the labor and skill of the exhibitor, and constitute a 
positive addition to our previous knowledge of the resources of the 
country, claim from the jury the highest award, namely, the sil¬ 
ver medal.” The collection was also favorably noticed by Pro¬ 
fessor Wilson, in his Report to the English Government. The 
occurrence of so many interesting minerals at this mine is not 
only pleasing to mineralogists, but encouraging to the miner; the 
practical inference being, that the lode must be very rich to pro¬ 
duce the salts of lead in such abundance and variety. 

DISTRIBUTION OF THE ORE IN THE YEIN. 

The ore in the mine is not found in nearly equal quantities 
throughout the course of the vein or fissure, spread, as is com¬ 
monly supposed, with an approximation to uniformity along or 


61 


between the walls, with perhaps here and there a poor place, 
irregularly disposed. On the contrary, an examination of the ore- 
ground, and especially of the accurate working sections, exhibit¬ 
ing the extent and position of the ground which has been stoped 
out, at once shows the inaccuracy of such a view, and the fact 
that the part of the lode in the vicinity of the engine-shaft is the 
richest which has yet been opened. The out-crops and surface 
indications were also most favorable in that vicinity. The mining 
operations have sufficiently developed the character of the vein 
to show beyond a doubt that the ore is distributed in elongated 
patches or shoots along the vein, having a vertical rather than hori¬ 
zontal extension , and lying parallel with each other. They are also 
found to dip, not only with the vein, but obliquely upon it, 
plunging towards the west at an angle of 45°. These shoots vary 
in size from a few inches to four or five feet in their transverse 
section, while their length from above downwards is much greater. 
Thus, in driving a gallery westward on the lode, these shoots 
were cut across transversely in succession, the ground between 
them not being devoid of ore, but, though poor compared with 
the body of the shoots, was, in general, rich enough to pay the 
expenses of driving. 

The distribution of the minerals in the shoots is also an inter¬ 
esting point. Captain Cocking has observed that, in passing 
through a shoot, blende is most abundant on each side, while the 
central portion is occupied by galena and lead salts. 

The ore shoots are arranged in groups or masses, being, for 
example, most abundant, as far as yet known, at the Wheatley 
Mine. The body of ore which has there been excavated upon 
may be regarded as a group of ore shoots conforming in all its 
characters to those of the individual shoots of ore composing it, 
extending downward like them at an angle of forty-five degrees, 
and to a great depth. 

If we consider this to be the type or general character of the 
ore deposit, we may look for other and parallel bodies of ore at 
other points along the vein, either out-cropping at the surface or 


terminating below it. Such shoots would be cut underground by 
extending prospecting galleries along the course of the vein. 

Such an arrangement or distribution of ore is not peculiar to 
this locality or vein, but it is observable in many others, especially 
in the gold veins of the Southern States, and in California. I 
recognize in it the result of a general law governing the filling of 
mineral veins, and have accumulated many interesting facts and 
observations bearing upon and illustrating the subject, which 
cannot be fully presented here. 

It is obvious that these general conclusions respecting the posi¬ 
tion and extent of the ore in the Wheatley vein have an im¬ 
portant practical bearing upon the mining operations. The 
direction and extent of future workings should be modified in 
conformity to them. Thus, the attention should first be directed 
to the extension of the mine along the main body of ore, so as to 
follow it in depth, and avoid the extension of levels beyond the 
bounds of the paying ground, except for the purpose of explora¬ 
tion. Such prospecting or exploring galleries may be located at 
the most convenient and encouraging points as the mining pro¬ 
gresses. 

The main engine shaft is favorably located, but according to 
the above view of the distribution of the ore, would have been 
better placed if farther west, so as to keep upon the shoot of ore 
to a greater depth. It should be sunk twent}^ or thirty fathoms 
deeper, and the galleries extended westwardly in the direction of 
the main body of ore. On reaching the vein with the shaft, 
which will probably be at the fifty-fathom level, it may be found 
best to change the direction of the shaft from the verticle, so as 
to follow the dip or inclination of the ore. If, instead of thus 
inclining the shaft to the west, it be sunk upon the dip of the lode 
merely, the advantage of exploring the vein to the eastward of 
the shoot will be secured. This work of exploration will be ac¬ 
complished not only by the shaft, but by the galleries which may 
be driven westward from it along the vein. 

That there is another shoot of ore to the east of the engine shaft 
is indicated by the favorable ore-bearing ground cut in the adit 


68 


and ten-fathom level, about 500 feet east of the shaft. A shoot 
of ore at that point has been stoped out from the ten-fathom 
level to the adit. The ore-bearing part of the vein was from nine 
to twelve inches thick. The shaft would probably intersect the 
shoot near the 100-fathom level; or the sixty-fathom level, ex¬ 
tended 200 feet eastward, would probably intersect it. 

In 1855, the three companies owning the Wheatley, the Brook- 
dale and the Phoenix mines were consolidated into one.* This 
was very desirable, for it is better to concentrate the labor and 
expenditures upon the vein at one central and favorable point, 
where a powerful pumping engine can be erected, than to dis¬ 
tribute it at three or more points, and have the cost of erection 
and maintenance of as many engines and the necessary construc¬ 
tions. The Wheatle}^ engine shaft appears to be the most favor¬ 
able point from which to extend the mine and to develop the 
character of the vein more fully, after which it may become 
necessary to prosecute mining at the Brookdale. 


REPORT OF CHARLES HOOFSTETTEN, ESQ., MINING 

ENGINEER. 

The mines near Phoenixvilie include a number of metallic 
veins or lodes, the uniform and parallel direction of which, indi¬ 
cate one epoch of formation. These veins are assembled at the 
contact of the gneiss and the granite, the whole of the metalli¬ 
ferous region forming part of the mantle of gneiss which sur¬ 
rounds the granite summits. 

The gangues of the veins are composed of quartz, carbonate of 
lime, magnesia, sulphate of baryta, &c. 

Argentiferous galena is disseminated in rounded masses, mixed 
with copper pyrites and blende. Several other subordinate sub- 


* This company never proceeded to work the mines, owing to causes entirely 
disconnected with their metallic wealth. 





64 


stances are also found, such as carbonate, sulphate and phosphate 
of lead, bournonite, &c., &c. 

The coincidence of direction in all the disturbances of the 
strata which have occurred at different points, whether by up¬ 
heaval, by the emission of igneous rocks, by fissures and metalli¬ 
ferous emanations—is one of the most remarkable circumstances 
in the geology of this region. 

The zone nearest the surface is often characterized by native 
or oxidized metals, according to the compact, carious or concrete 
nature of the gangue. 

When followed to a greater depth, these ores and gangues are 
soon found to be replaced by the sulphurets and crystalline 
gangues which belong particularly to the zone below. This 
second zone is characterized, not only by sulphurets, but by the 
crystalline and geodic character of the ores and the ribboning of 
the gangues. Pyrites, galena and blende belong to this category 
of ores, evidently formed by sublimation. With regard to the 
Wheatley vein, which is the deepest worked, facts are wanting to 
enable us to judge of the comparative thickness of the two zones. 
The lower zone appears to have, in some degree, an indefinite 

_ i 

depth which cannot be measured. There are works in Siberia, 
5,000 feet deep, sunk upon certain metallic veins, showing no 
variations which indicate a change in the general conditions of 
the composition of the deposits. 

As for the upper zone, 350 feet may be about its maximum 
thickness, being thus very small when compared with that of the 
lower zone; and it would be of little importance to us but for 
the fact that it is first presented for our examination and mining 
operations. 

If we now examine the varieties of ores, relative to their metal¬ 
lurgy treatment, we shall find that in many cases they account for 
the unproductiveness and the abandonment of mines. Thus the 
workings of argentiferous lead ore, in the Counties of Chester, 
Montgomery, &c., have been opened in favorable ground, and the 
ore is easily extracted, containing the lead, under conditions the 
most favorable for metallurgical operations. As mines are deep- 

\ 


65 


ened, the working becomes more expensive, and at the same time 
the ores are changed into sulphurets; that is to say, they become 
hard to work and more difficult to smelt. Is it not evident that, 
in this case, many deposits of ore will be considered as unpro¬ 
ductive. But to the eye of the geologist the continuity of the 
ore is an established fact: it is only in its mineralogieal character 
that it is modified. 

There may be a case, not only of simple mineralogieal modifi¬ 
cation, but of a more or less complete transformation by the sub¬ 
stitution of one metal for another; whether it be copper or lead, 
the result will be the same. 

The Wheatley vein presents, in its upper middle portions, one 
of the finest deposits of galena that can be mentioned; the thick¬ 
ness of the pure ore, without any mixture of the gangue, being 
more than twenty inches! There being a great influx of water, it 
has been deemed expedient to incur the expense of several steam 

. i 

engines. 

But at a level of 300 feet, the galena is found to be partly re¬ 
placed by blende. It will be percei ved that such a transformation 
must have an unfavorable effect upon the enterprise, and it may be 
said to a certain point with exactness, that the galena, although in 
reality very abundant, is diminished in depth, and is substituted 
by blende or copper pyrites. The principle of the continuity of 
the ore in depth is found to be sufficiently demonstrated; but, as 
a generality, it can no more be applied in all its strictness to the 
deeper veins than to those parts nearer the surface. All the varia¬ 
tions of the ores, and all the accidents and faults which interrupt 
them in places which are known, may present themselves at a greater 
depth as the works progress; but it is only by understanding the 
conditions of the origin of ores and the principle of their con¬ 
tinuity in depth, that we are able to give to subterranean works 
that logical and persevering direction which is indispensable to the 
successful continuance of mining operations. 

The ore-beds of Montgomery and Chester counties belong to a 
system of regular deposits, including all the interstice veins (filons 
fentes) which result from posterior fissures in the inclosing strata, 
9 


66 


and which have been filled by special gangnes and ores, with the 
debris of the roof and of the wall of the vein;—they are charac- 
terized by a crystalline and ribboned character, and form flat¬ 
tened mineral masses included between the two nearly parallel 
planes of the roof and of the wall. 

Their direction is about 30° to 35° north-east: they cut the 
stratification of the rocks which contain them, at angles between 
45° and the vertical, deepening rapidly as they sink into the crust 
of the globe. These fissure veins are independent of the rocks 
in which they are contained; they run through not only the strata 
of the trias, of the red and gray shales, but even the granites and 
trappean rocks. In all their positions they have the character of 
appearance conformable to their origin, and if they are modified 
according to the conditions of the fissures in the fractured rocks, 
and according to the more or less easy cleavage of the formation, they 
preserve, in their system of progress, a regularity and a continuity 
which justifies their definition. I have remarked, that in the 
regular ore vein at Charlestown, the metalliferous matters are of 
later deposit than the enclosing rock formation, except in the 
rather rare case, where the matters have been stratified with the 
sedimentary deposits by the effect of a contemporaneous meta¬ 
morphism. My numerous observations authorize me, moreover, 
to conclude that these matters are the result of subterraneous phe¬ 
nomena, of which the seat is below the solid crust of the globe. 

The origin of ores which constitute metalliferous veins is not 
now to be discussed:—all geologists admit that they proceed from 
emanations resulting from the high temperature and the particular 
composition of the interior of the globe—phenomena which at all 
geological epochs have re-acted upon the solid and cooled crust. 
The mineral veins of Montgomery and Chester counties, I consider 
as volcanic emanations which have introduced the ore in the veins, 
or volcanic substances, in the manner of sulphur, copper, &c. The 
ores of the veins and their gangues in crystalline ribbonings, (sel¬ 
vages), mixed with the fallen fragments of the wall rocks, have 
altogether the character of volcanic productions, emanating in the 
manner of sulphur:—they are incrustations made bv vapors and 


a 

67 

mineral sources—crystalline incrustations successively deposited 
upon the walls of the fissures in the rocks, cementing the debris 
of the walls, and sometimes even the arenaceous fragments fallen 
from the surface. 

This origin being admitted, the metalliferous lodes would natur¬ 
ally present particular characters: they would be allied in many 
relations of deposit with the eruptive rocks which are themselves the 
principal result of the interior reaction of the globe upon the surface. 

What I have said with regard to veins will naturally apply to 
all deposits of which the value can be calculated according to the 
product of a cubic yard, and a vein should never be declared sterile 
or unproductive until fully proved to be so. Geological science 
cannot really determine the quantity of ore which may be requis¬ 
ite in a particular locality to render a vein worth working, because 
this quantity must depend upon the conditions under which it is 
mined, the cost of transportation, the price of labor, &c. 

CHARLES HOOFSTETTEN, 
Geologist and Mining Engineer. 

Philadelphia, 17 th May , 1855. 


EEPOETS OF SIR CHAELES LYELL AND 
PROFESSOR WILSON. 

The British Government sent, in 1853, a commission of scientific 
and practical men to the United States, to inspect the New-York 
Exhibition, and examine and report upon the various branches of 
industry in the country. Among these commissioners were Sm 
Charles Lyell, the distinguished geologist, and Professor 
John Wilson, formerly Principal of the Royal Agricultural Col¬ 
lege at Cirencester. On their return, these gentlemen made spe¬ 
cial reports to the Government, which were published by Parlia¬ 
ment. From those reports are drawn the following extracts: 



SPECIAL REPOET OF SIR CHARLES LYELL. 


Having been requested, when I visited New A ork as commis¬ 
sioner in 1853, to report on the Geological department of the 
Industrial Exhibition, I have endeavored to discharge this duty as 
well as was in my power. * 

ECONOMICAL PRODUCTS OF THE NEW RED SANDSTONE 

FORMATION. 

In Pennsylvania, in the Counties of Montgomery and Chester, 
some of the productive veins of lead and copper ores, which lie 
near the junction of this formation (new red sandstone) with the 
gneiss rocks, penetrate both systems, while other veins lie wholly 
within one or the other set of strata. The localities mentioned 
afford large quantities of lead and copper ores ; and some of the 
mines are producing valuable returns. The veins in the shales 
and sandstones are observed to be more prolific in copper than in 
lead; and the same lode which is lead-producing in the gneiss, be¬ 
comes copper-bearing in the superior rock, or the lead ores be¬ 
come greatly reduced, and the copper largely preponderates. 

The principal ores are sulphuret and phosphate of lead, and sul- 
phuret and carbonate of copper. These ores will be again referred 
to in the description of the older metamorphic rocks. 

ECONOMICAL PRODUCTS OF THE OLDER METAMORPHIC 

ROCKS. 

The lead and copper mines of Montgomery and Chester Coun¬ 
ties, Pennsjdvania, already mentioned in connection with the new 
red sandstone, occur in the gneiss rocks of this system. These 
veins promise to yield largely of these two metals. The line of 
demarcation between those rocks and the newer metamorphic, is 
not so clearly defined in the region southward as to enable us to 
designate with certainty the mines which may be in this or in the 
preceding formation. In this direction, both series appear to be 
more prolific in ores, excepting iron, than the same formations in 
New England and New-York. 


69 


SPECIAL REPORT OF PROFESSOR WILSON. 

Pennsylvania .—The mineral resources of this important State 
were well illustrated by the fine and large collection of Specimens 
which were displayed in this class, (minerals, mining, metallurgy, 
&c.) Foremost amongst these was a magnificent collection of 
lead ores, chiefly from the AYheatley Mine, near Phoenixville, 
which were contributed by Mr. C. M. Wheatley. These comprised 
specimens rarely met with of the chromate, molybdate, chromo¬ 
molybdate, phosphate, arsenio-pliosphate, sulphate and carbonate of 
lead in spendid crystals, with samples of the galena and dressed 
ore. This mine is one of considerable interest, as it is probably 
the only one where systematic mining operations on any scale are 
carried out. Some details of the mining operations will be found 
at page 48. * * * 

In respect to this particular mineral, (lead,) so far as I could 
learn, the mining operations are confined everywhere to mere 
surface-working, save at Phoenixville, in Pennsylvania, and at one 
small mine at Arkansas. At Phoenixville, the mines, under the 
able direction of Mr. C. M. Wheatley, are carried on perfectly 
upon the Cornish system, Mr. Wheatley having availed himself to 
the fullest extent, not only of the experience of our mining practices 
but also of the practical skill of our men. The captains, as well 
as most of the miners, are from Cornwall; and in the office of the 
works, in which I was pleased to see well arranged cabinets 
containing duplicate specimens of the beautiful ores he exhibited 
in Class 1,1 recognised a Draughtsman and Surveyor whose work 
was well known in the mapping-room of the Museum of Practical 
Geology in Jermyn Street. 

These mines are situate in Chester County, near where the 
Pickering Creek joins the Schuylkill River. According to Prof. 
II. A. Rogers’s report, these veins belong to a group of lead and 
copper-bearing lodes of a very interesting character, forming a 
metalliferous zone which ranges in a general east and west direc¬ 
tion across the Schuylkill River, near the lower stretches of the 
Perkiomen and Pickering Creeks, in Montgomery and Chester 
Counties, and bids fair to constitute, at no very distant day, a 
productive and important mineral region. 


TO 


The individual veins of this rather numerous group are re¬ 
markable throughout for their general mutual parallelism. The 
workings commenced only three }^ears ago upon the Wheatley 
vein; now there are two others in successful operation, the 
Charlestown, which runs parallel to it, at a distance of about half a 
mile westward, and the Brookdale, which appears to be merely an 
extension of the Wheatley Lode. It lies almost in a direct line 
with it, not deviating, in fact, the amount of half a degree in the 
entire distance between them, which is but little short of a mile. 
This view is also confirmed by the correspondence in the dip of 
the two veins, and also by the close agreement, amounting almost 
to identity, between the vein-stones and ores of the respective 
lodes. Mr. Wheatley, the managing partner, was good enough to 
accompany me in my visit to the mines, and to point out to me 
the many difficulties he had to overcome before he had arrived at 

1/ 

the present successful state of the operations. So convinced was 
he of the advantage of following the vein below the level com¬ 
manded by his present engine-power, that he was about to erect a 
300 horse-power pumping-engine midway between the Brookdale 
and Wheatley shafts, so as effectually to relieve the mine from 
any influx of water that might find its way into the lower levels. 
He also took me to see a copper mine which he was just com¬ 
mencing operations upon, and which certainly, as far as surface 
indications can be relied on, appeared likely to sustain the charac¬ 
ter he has acquired by his successful direction of the Wheatley 
lead mines. 


LETTER FROM MESSRS. JOHN TAYLOR & SONS. 

No. 6 Queen Street Place, \ 
Upper Thames St., j- 
London , June 21, 1852. ' 

Edward F. Sanderson, Esq. : 

Dear Sir , — In reply to your question relating to our taking 
an agency for your Company in this country, I beg to say that 


71 


we shall be glad to connect ourselves with parties so respectable, 
and shall be willing to do our utmost to forward your views and 
your success. It is difficult to arrange terms of payment at once, 
but I think you and your friends will see that if you call upon us 
to advise you, to supply you with men skilled in their vocations, 
and with drawings and descriptions of machinery, appliances, &c., 
of processes, to contribute, as we hope and believe they will, to 
your great profit and advantage, and at the same time, in some 
degree in opposition, as it were, to our interests here at home, (for 
we are both large lead miners and smelters,) you will see I repeat 
that you ought to pay us liberally. We shall be content, however, 
to leave this matter in your hands, promising you that whilst we 
act for you at all you shall have our best services. With respect 
to the commercial part of your business, that, of course, we will un¬ 
dertake upon usual conditions; and if you will desire your cor¬ 
respondents at Liverpool to forward any ores they may receive, 
direct to Mr. Joel Williams, at Baggilt, advising him, by post, at 
Mold , he will manage all the business of sampling, sale by tickets, 
and weighing off to the buyers, also collecting and remitting the 
money. Mr. Williams is the cashier of a large foundry which we 
have near the town of Mold, in Flintshire, and is much employed 
by us, also as our agent for the sale of lead ores at Baggilt. Our 
Mold Foundry is a place where any description of mining ma¬ 
chinery can be had, and we can deliver goods in Liverpool in 
five or six hours. 

I must say that I have read the Reports of Prof. Rogers with 
great pleasure. They contain an admirably clear description 
of the geological features of that piece of country, and a clear 
picture to our eyes of the mineral lodes you have opened. He 
puts distinctly forward his theoretical view as to the mode in 
which the lodes have been filled with the substances which 
they were found to contain; and although we have never allied 
ourselves to the Plutonian or Neptunian school of geologists, 
and see vast difficulties in reconciling numbers of facts to the 
Huttonian or Wernerian theories, yet we must admit that such a 
clear case of gossan, igneous minerals and ores of metal “ most 


72 


readily vaporized by heat,” as is presented here, goes far to 
strengthen our belief that many metallic lodes ought to be classed 
as “ true intrusive lodes. 1 ' 

I may add my opinion or testimony to that of Prof. Rogers 
in favor of these lodes, in saying, that the gradual change from 
gossan to carbonates and phosphates of lead, and from those to 
sulphurets is an almost unmistakable indication of a valuable 
lead lode ; and I may add that I have rarely known an instance 
where those minerals have been found in abundance in the shal¬ 
low parts of the lode where it has not turned out very productive 
in depth in ores of pure galena ; and I may further say, that the 
soft and decomposing character of the rock in the walls of the 
lodes is a very favorite symptom in our mining districts, and is 
so also in Mexico. 

I may assume that you have two lodes of considerable promise, 
that they yield ores of a metal which is in great demand every¬ 
where; and I cannot, therefore, hesitate to advise you to open 
ground upon these lodes rapidly. 

Next, I should advise you to wash or dress the ores as clean as 
possible, whether for export or for smelting upon the spot. You 
will find it answer to wash out all earthy matter or metallic sub¬ 
stances other than those of lead. 

If you require pumping-machines, and have no constant and 
abundant water-power near at hand, you will do wisely to erect a 
simple Cornish principle pumping-engine—a condensing engine— 
and use pumps of a sufficient size to prevent the engine working 
more than three or four strokes per minute at first, for in extend¬ 
ing your levels an increased quantity may be reckoned upon. 

For winding, I presume you have excellent engines in the 
United States of all kinds. We adopt guides and square kibbles 
in our shafts now generally. 

Next, as to the disposal of your ores If you send them to 
England, for the present they can be converted at once into cash, 
and in the manner indicated above ; but to sell well, they must 
be perfectly washed. 

Your best plan, however, is undoubtedly to smelt your ores 


_ m 


78 


upon the spot; I mean at some convenient point near to the mine 
and near to the canal which brings your coal and will take away 
the lead. In favor of converting the ore into lead upon the spot, 
I may state that the transport, freight, insurance, loss of time and 
interest will be saved, and as pig lead is at this moment about 
£21 per ton in the United States, and £16 10s. at our outports 
here, and that a large quantity is now sent from Spain, from Ger¬ 
many and from England to America, it is manifest that a large 
gain by smelting on the spot, if the price of coal, labor, &c., be not 
too dear. 

I may say that the cost of smelting such ores as yours are 
likely to be, (not the most fusible probably,) in this country, would 
be about 14s. to 15s. per ton of 2,240 lbs. ; I mean for labor, 
coal, lime for flux, tools, agency, not interest of capital or works ; 
and that the cost of extracting the silver would be upon lead 
containing 23 to 24 oz. per ton of lead, about 25s. per ton, loss of 
lead included in the cost. 

It would cost you to erect a smelting house and two reverbatory 
furnaces, (each of which would smelt 18 tons of ore per week,) 
about £600 or £650 ; tools for ditto, say £40 to £50. 

The flues, and a condensing chamber for the lead fumes, and a 
high chimney, say £600 to £700, according to situation as to 
stone, brick, lime, &c. 

A desilverising house, with seven pots, furnaces, flues and chim¬ 
ney, £1,000 to £1,200. One refining small engine, with fan 
blast and houses, boiler, &c., for them £700 to £800; and say 
for extras, such as moulds, weighing machine, slag furnace, tools, 
assay office, balance and apparatus, £350 to £400. 

Say, altogether, for £3,000 to £4,000, as far as I can estimate 
here. I would willingly contract to put up such a work here for 
£2,500, complete. You will require for such a work, a superin¬ 
tendent who understands the whole business and can direct the 
erection of the buildings, furnaces, &c., two fore-hands and two 
back-hands, smelters for a time, until others be taught, four pot¬ 
men, (helpers to be got on the spot,) and two refiners and assistants. 
It is not easy to get any people of this sort now, for all here are 
10 


74 


fully employed ; but I know of some wbo could be procured now 
and then by cliance. Their wages would be rather high, as Cali¬ 
fornia and Australia have swept off all the loose fish. I will 
endeavor to show you the difference in favor of smelting, desil- 
verising and refining on the spot, instead of sending the ores here 
for sale. 

Twenty cwts. or 2,240 lbs. of your galena (I do not calculate on 
the phosphates) will yield full thirteen and a half cwts. of pig 
lead. Take this at £20 per ton, equal to £13 6s. 6d. Those 
thirteen and a half cwts. of lead will yield sixteen ounces of silver, 
worth, at 5s. 3d. per ounce, £4 4s.—value together, £17 10s. 6d. 
Deduct for smelting this twenty cwts. of ore, 30s. per ton, and for 
desilverising thirteen and a half cwts. of lead, say at £25 per ton 
—2s. 3d. on 30s. Smelting and extracting silver, together, £3, 
leaves £14 10s. 6d. per ton, which you will net on the mine, be¬ 
sides something handsome out of the slags once or twice a year. 
Now if you were to send this ore here, you would not get at all 
more than £12 per ton, clear of all expenses from your mine 
here, and I think that I have put the price of lead on your side of 
the Atlantic too low. 

From these figures you will be able to form your own judgment. 
Of course I would not recommend such works or such outlay, un¬ 
less the lodes continue to promise to yield pretty largely. 

I am not aware that there is anything more on which I need 
enlarge. ... 

And remain, my dear sir, 

Yours faithfully, 

JOHN TAYLOR & SONS, 

per John Taylor, Jr. 



75 


ASSAYS OF GOSSANS AND ORES. 


Laboratory of Practical and Analytical Chemistry, 

Philadelphia, August 17^, 1852. 


Mr. Chas. M. Wheatley: 

The following are the results of the Gossan experiments:— 


No. Mark. Per Cent. Silver. 

1. Average Gossan Wheatley Mining Co.0.0625 

2 . Manganese Gossan, Charlestown.mere trace 

3. Gossan, “ •. 0.0738 

4. Average Gossan, “ .3.3215 


Silver in Net Ton. 
lOoz. 4 14 

12 .. .. 
542 9 12 


I am almost alarmed at the last result, but yet such was the re¬ 
turn of the assay made in the dry way. 


(Signed) 


JAS. C. BOOTH. 


I have assayed five samples of lead ore for Mr. Sanderson, and 


find them to yield ; 

as follows:— 

Lead. 

Silver, per ton. 

Fine Grain, Wheatley, 

No. 1. 



Plumose, “ 

2 . 

...68 “ . 

_32 “ 

Large lump, “ 

3. 

..M% “ . 

.38 “ 4 “ 

Plumose, “ 

4. 


.40 “ 

Cubical, C. B. “ 

5. 

....77 “ . 

.44 “ 4 “ 


(Signed) JAMES R. CHILTON, M. D. 

Chemist . 

New-York, March 14^,1858. 


No. 4. Powder taken from a geode of zinc contained 44 ozs, 
silver per 2,240 lbs. of ore. 

Samples Nos. 1, 2 and 3, received from Wheatleys Mine. 

1. Lead, 74.silver, 045.equal 19.4 ozs. per 2,240 lbs. ore. 

2 . « 79 . “ 058. “ 24.3 “ “ “ 

3> « 7 6 . “ 06. “ 26.1 “ 


(Signed) 


CHARLES JOHNSON. 




















































































































































































































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